Latest / The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination / JFK ASSASSINATION - EP. 360 - Help Us Rep Luna, You're Our Only Hope

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JFK ASSASSINATION - EP. 360 - Help Us Rep Luna, You're Our Only Hope · The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: And here we go.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: That's right, Joe. What's up everybody, and welcome to the
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: lungam And Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Rob Clark,
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: along with me Joe Morelli, and with us today two
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: very special guests, two of five of JFK Chokehold's authors,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: are with us today to talk about uh, some files
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: and some letters and a whole lot of other things.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: They are Andrew Eiler and Marc Damcheck. Hopefully I'm saying
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: your name right, sir, Sir, I said it just like
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: how D Genial calls you. So if it's wrong, I know.
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: You said it better than Jim does. I'm kidding now
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: that that was That was great. It's a damn zick.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: But the damn check is great too.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That that. Uh, that combination of consonance there at
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the end is brutal. Yep, But I feel like I
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: would have done a better job than Joe.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: So my mispronunciation as a running joke on the podcast.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The reason we're here today, folks, is because uh
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Mark wrote a very interesting letter to Representative Anna Paulina Luna,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the Goddess as we call her around these parts. Fellas.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: For obvious reasons, but I thought the letter, which was
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: published over at Kennedy's and king dot com and we're
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: gonna put the link in the description so you can
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: go check it out yourself, was worthy of some more
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: discussion and especially worthy of attention from the JFK research community.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: So that is why we're here today. Uh, and we're
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: gonna take it a little further and and dig into things.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And you know, uh, for a lot of delayed people
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: in the community, you know, not so nerdy like we are.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: You know, some of this stuff can be very confusing
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: and daunting and you know, kind of above people's pay
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: grades when it comes to try to parse out and
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: understand how all this works. So hopefully we're here today
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: to dumb it down for some people and explain exactly
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: what is going on, what should be going on, and
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: hopefully what will be going on. So on that note, Joe,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: if you want to kick us off and get us
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: going here with the fellas, and again, thanks guys for
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: joining us.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Yep, thank you very much. And before we start, I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: thought we'd start off on a light note. Andrew, how
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: was your trip to the other side of the Pond
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Dealey Plaza? UK? Was that Scotland or northern England.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And did you meet your doppelganger?
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: Who's that?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Jarvis Cocker from the band Pulp.
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: The first time I've heard that one.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Now know who I'm talking about.
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: I haven't seen a photo I saw. I'm gonna have
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: to check that out. Yeah Google, Yeah, no, it's had.
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: It was in Warwickshire, England, which is about an hour
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: north of London, and uh, it was fantastic. It was
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: an amazing venue, a great a great bunch of speakers
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: and uh, it was really quite enlightened in being there.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: And you know, I do have to say it was
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: a little bit different than than some of my experiences
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: in uh in Dallas. The the UK research community, it
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: seems to be a little more collegial and uh and
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: uh and supportive of even views that that maybe not
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: everyone agrees on. But uh, you know, they they gave
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: me a nice little spot on on Saturday to present
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: about the final determinations. It was. It was really well received.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: I think they're just starting to publish some of the
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: presentations on YouTube this week, so I know. Paul Blow
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: did did a presentation on the Pepe letters and on
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: prior plots and that's up on YouTube now on Dalley
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: Plaza UK. It was a fantastic experience, like everyone was
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: really welcoming there and uh and and again the response
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: was fantastic. It was a good opportunity to put together
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: a fairly lengthy power point to go along with my presentation,
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: and there was a lot of interest. I got to
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: meet Malcolm Blunt and Bart Camp and Johnny Cairns and
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: Neil Saffady put on the event. He did an amazing
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: job with both the venue and and keeping things moving.
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: It was thousand positive experience.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome, awesome.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: And did you get to speak with Malcolm Blunt regarding
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the archives and records?
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: And yeah, we we actually had a few opportunities. It
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: was nice. Bart bart Camp was pretty intent on on
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: on setting up a little communicate with myself and Malcolm
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: and it was a it was a great honor getting
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: to meet Malcolm. He's he's quite revered, revered over there
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: and uh and over here as well. He's just done
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: some phenomenal work. I would if you get a chance
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: to go over there, I would highly recommend it. They're
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: going to have next year's conference at the same venue
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: Ashhorn Hill. It's in a historic building in a really
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: historic area. It's right near Stratford on Avon and a
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: bunch of other really amazing places. It it was just beautiful.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wasn't it like a castle?
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah? I don't know if I call it a castle,
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: but it was like it was like an old mansion,
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: like big, very large mansion on a beautiful property. Yeah, spectacular.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: That's really cool. Maybe our friend Bart can convince the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Triple B to come over.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Because it might take two I don't know. I know, well,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: I'm saying it might take Bart to convince you. But yeah,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you found that picture yet, Rob.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, before we get into the ortic.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: I just found this. I figured we started off with
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: nice little amusing side note here.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Normally, you know, people will say, oh, yeah, you really
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: look like this person, you look like that person? And
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: here you go, what are you saying?
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah? My hair is getting there? It's I know I
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: have her voice though.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Right, you know, I mean, yeah, give maybe next year
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: about this time your hair will be long enough and
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: maybe twinning with this guy, Yes, Jarvis Cocker from the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: band Pulp from over in England.
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: I'm going to get on that keep my hair growing out.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so let's get into Mark's article here on
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Rob's favorite website, Kennedy's and King. But just a little
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: background on Mark. He's an attorney from Naples, Florida, graduate
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: of Tulaine and Florida State University College of Law. For
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the past twenty years, Mark has been studying the JFK assassination,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: related and related US history. Mark's recent focus has been
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the JFK Records Collection Act and the federal law that
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: guarantees the public disclosure of the history surrounding the JFK assassination.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And Mark is dedicated to ensuring that the US government
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: complies with its remaining obligations under the JFK Records Act.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: And you are, of course a co author of Chokeholds,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: which is of above one of my shoulders here, the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: left one, Okay, and uh, and it is signed by you.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Actually were you at Lancer last year?
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I was. I was at the table and
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: uh in meeting I get it was really I think Andrew,
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: you remember a cool experience we had was sitting with
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: Bob Groen and his wife. That was good. That was
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: that was a good memory, and it's it's it's a
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: great comp Probably go back this year. I try to
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: go every year into Kappa too. They usually kind of
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: combine them or at the same venue or something.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, we probably would have met or shook hands,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: probably because I know I was talking with Andrew and
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and Matt Crumpton. But of course it is all a blur,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: so I can't recall it. But I hope to hopefully
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: be there this year as well, so maybe we'll meet
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: in person. But I did really enjoy your was eleven page.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was supposed to it's gonna be shorter, but
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: once I really dug into it and got you know,
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: couldn't really help it being a lawyer and wanting to
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: get it all on paper. Then when I was looking
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: at it, I was like, you know, I'm not going
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: to take anything out. This needs to get out there
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: and there it is.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Well, Rob, and I know how that goes for sure.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: We a couple of weeks ago we were like, let's
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: try to keep our shows two closer to an hour,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and that lasted about one week.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: So it's very hard to information into finite space.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I like the way you started off
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the letter because you congratulated her on the public hearings
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: of April first and May twentieth, and those were great hearings.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: We covered them intensely on this show and our members
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: only Chat on Wednesday, and our whole perspective on it
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: was it's great that these hearings are happening, that it's
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: in the press, that people are reporting on it. But
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more stuff to do. And although some
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: people and some deservingly so, are taking some victory laps
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: with some records releases, there's a lot more to do.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And we're going to get into what exactly we can do,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: what the community can do together to kind of band
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: together to get the Congress and the governant to actually
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: comply with the JFK Records Act.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So because it doesn't seem like, you know, the whole well,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: it's a it's a noble idea. But and the same
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: thing happened back in twenty seventeen when we were supposed
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to get the files and didn't you know, uh, to
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: bring like tiny to sue the government, bring lawsuits to
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: the government where they just kind of like Superman, you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: bullets are falling off of the suit type of thing.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Nothing seems to stick with these folks. And and while
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: you know, there may be some criticism out there of
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Luna and how she's handling this committee, I for one
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: think that you need somebody like that. While she may
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: not be the most knowledgeable person to the case, and
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: and she has admittedly said things publicly that are cringeworthy
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: if you want, if you want to be honest, but
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: she's very tenacious and you and you can see her passion,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: and you know, I think you know, there's a lot
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: of information when it comes to the JFK case to
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: try to absorb if you're if you haven't studied it
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: for years, you know, and she's had you know, weeks
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: or months to try to you know, get in this
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: mindset and you know, have people steer her over this way.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Oh we need this, we need that, we need to
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: make sure we do this, and make sure we do that,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: and you know type of thing. But so kind of
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: walk us through the Uh what spurned you to write
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: this letter to Luna? You know a lot of may
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: seem you know, people be like, what, dude, why are
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: you wasting your time with this? Do you really think
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: she's gonna read it? Do you think anything's gonna happen
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: with this. What's the point, right?
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: I mean the short answer to that is Judge Tunheim's
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: testimony on May twentieth. And while that may not have
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: jumped off the page to most of the listeners, if
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: maybe only a few of us, being a stickler for
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: the JFK Records Act and the job that Judge Tunheim
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: and his colleagues had to do in the early nineties
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: in a very short period of time, he shared his
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: experience in the difficulties and the problems that he sees
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: and the work that still needs to be done. I mean,
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: those are in a nutshell what he said. We can
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: get into specific comments, but I didn't fully appreciate it.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: On May twentieth, I was thrilled that he testified because
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: what a better exor witness to talk about the review Board,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: what its job was, and the difficulties he had. And
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking, this is, you know, something that really needs
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: to be followed up on. Because while it's great to
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: have witnesses like doctor Curtis, you know, Dan Hardway, Doug Horn,
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: you know Jefferson Morley's talked a lot about the CIA
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: Angleton and Joe and edies. But the records are the
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: only thing that live forever. And if you're going to
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: have a you know, forget having I mean an investigation
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: of the case from you know, in twenty twenty five
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: would be wonderful to be very difficult. Unlike the HSCA
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: in the late seventies had living witnesses. You're talking fifteen
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: years after the assassination. You have JM WAVE officers, you
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: have all kinds of opportunities. You have Dan Hardway and
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: Eddie Lopez investigating Oswald in Mexico City with witnesses. Okay,
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: that was great, But here in twenty twenty five, you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: if I'm looking at the state ad mission of the
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Task Force, which is to undo to eliminate government secrecy,
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: in transparency and create transparency, you need to complete the
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: JFKARE record collection. It's the only tragedy and assassination that
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: the Task Force is investigating or trying to remove the
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: veil from, so to speak, that has a statute behind it.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: It has a historical statute passed unanimously by Congress in
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety two that told the agencies through and the
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: government offices, Congressional oversight committees and of course the Review
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Board an independent agency. It said, this is how you
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: do it. It's not done yet. It's not done yet, and
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: it's not close. So when I re listened to Judge
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: two nine's testimony a little bit in June and going
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: into early July, that there is so much gold there.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: The stuff that he shared was phenomenal because, as Andrew
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: will say, he's a very measured man, he's a federal judge.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: He is going to carefully share his experience, but you know,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: not really pulling any punches. He said they were waiting
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: us out when we asked for specific records of interest
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: to further to make sure that the records collection was
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: complete on areas of interest that researchers had written the
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: review Board about, Hey what about these records? Make sure
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: they're in the collection. The Review Board would say, okay,
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: we'll do that, ask the CIA or whoever for it,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: and they would get we'll get back to you, or
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: they didn't get back to them at all. The one
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: the two I would say, the two comments, and I'm
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: sure I know Andrew. I would love for him to
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: comment on this, But the one that really stuck with
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: me was when he said, look, we reviewed what we
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: could in the short amount of time. We saw the
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: releases that came out this year. The Review Board never
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: saw many of them, and many records were transferred to
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: NARA at a later time. Those words at a later
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: time are critical because it's a direct violation of the
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: Records Collection Act for any record not to have been
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: provided to the Archives in early nineteen ninety two going
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: into ninety three, as the Review Board was getting set up,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: every record was supposed to go to NARRA in the
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: National Archives. Then they were transferred to NARA or the
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: National Archives at a later time. There has to be
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: a darn good explanation for it that has to be investigated.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: It was it.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: Created after nineteen ninety eight, Probably not if it was
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: okay go to the NAST, but if it existed as
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: of October nineteen ninety two when the statute was passed,
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: supposed to go to the Archives for Review Board decisions
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: on postponement and declassification. When Judge Tunnim said that didn't happen,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: that was a big red flag for me, and I'm
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: glad you said.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: It now, Andrew. The last time we talked, I think
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: we got into this just remind me real quick when
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: it comes to the CIA and documents and when they're
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: supposed to turn things over to the archives, is there
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: a specific timeframe like where they kind of the CIA
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: needs to do a document dump like every every five
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: years or every ten years, because you know, obviously, when
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: you're talking about just the JFK assassination related records, that's
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of it's a lot of files, a lot
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: of paper, and that's not everything the CIA does and
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: turns over to NAR. So unless they have these, you know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: a gazillion warehouses all over the world where papers are
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: sitting in, are they supposed to basically do a document
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: dump over to NARA every so often? I can't remember.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: I know we're again, you know what, Rob, The Act
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: is totally specific on that. I think it's in section
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: five It says what is in mark they have three
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: hundred days. Yeah, after the passage of the Act, which
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: was October twenty six, nineteen ninety two, so within the
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: by the end of nineteen nine three, all of the agencies,
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: including the CIA, by law, would have already transferred or
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: created riff forms for all of the records pertaining to
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: the assassination. Well, that never happened. I think that was
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: a challenging timeframe, to be quite honest, given the volume
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: of records that we now know exist. I don't think
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: anyone back then, except for maybe the CIA and the FBI,
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: knew exactly what that volume would be. But it was
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: it three hundred days mark, Yeah, Yeah.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Three hundred days. It was the final deadline to make
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: sure everything was transferred over to the National Archives. There
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: was a shorter deadline the passage of the Act to
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: identify all their and organize all their association records, create
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: the rift forms, and get ready. The three hundred days
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: was the final deadline.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So three hundred days after the Act was signed
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: in Yeah, I was just wondering, like three hundred days
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: after the Act was signed into law in October ninety.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Two, yep, Okay, yeah, that's when everything had to be
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: transferred over. And look, I think there wasn't any flexibility
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: in the law, but in practice there was clearly flexibility
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: because I mean, the CIA and other agencies were turning
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: over documents right until the last minute in nineteen ninety eight,
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: and then the metadata that we're finding now and some
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: of the twenty twenty five releases seems to suggest that
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: a bunch of the like the most recent releases in
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: March twenty twenty five, it appears that they were received
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: by NARA in the year two thousand. A bunch of
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: them were received in November two thousand. Now I'm trying
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: to confirm whether the metadata that's in in the narras
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: in the records, it does reflect that actual transmission date.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: But that's something that Congress should be looking at. Okay ay,
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: and Mark Mark is being hammering this in his letter
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: to Representative Luna and to everyone that will listen. We
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: don't have a complete, accurate, comprehensive and unified catalog or
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: index of assassination records or riff numbers. There's no way
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: that you can search the collection. Even according to senior archivist,
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: the JFK records collection is a quote mess. Leading researchers
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: and experts in the records all acknowledge the same thing.
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: The records collection is a mess. There's no way to
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: fully determine what's in there, what's not in there, what
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: the status of any record precisely is in a sensible way.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: You can't search subjects or names in the collection, so
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: there are big problems, and the Act requires at least
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: for there to be a comprehensive, unified index and catalog
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: of records so we know what's in there. And I mean,
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: for me, that's a starting point. You can't go anywhere
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: unless you know what's at what you're actually dealing with.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: And you know, the the really tough thing is for
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: the final determinations. And again Mark Mark has been thinking
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: this through. We don't have a full collection of the
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: ar RB's final agency orders with regard to the records
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: that they did review and issue decisions on all of those,
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: as the two articles that I've written and that we
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: talked about the last time I was on you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: all of those final determinations, which are binding and enforceable
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: legal orders, are stuff somewhere away in the National Archives files.
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: They're denying that they have full digital copies of them.
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: We know as a matter of fact, both from senior
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: ARRB leaders and from the IT specialists, that they literally
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: transferred the entire computer system, servers, discs, other storage, actual
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: computers with their whole system over to the National Archives
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: so they could maintain the collection directly from the ARRB
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: and implement and enforce the ARBs orders. But yet NARA
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: formally in writing, has denied that they have digital copies
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: of these records. They haven't. They haven't even acknowledged that
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: they have paper copies. And you know as again, as
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: a matter of fact, directly from ARRB documents, the ARRB
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: literally attached physical copies of these legal orders to the
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: associated records that they they governed. And you know, NARA
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: wasn't a passive repository for these records. They monitored very
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: carefully the transmission and receipt of all of the assassination
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: records from the ARRB, to the point where if a
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: record was transferred to NARA without an ARRB final determination,
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: they would literally get a hold of the ARRB and say, hey,
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: you've sent us over a couple of records that don't
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: have a final determination. Can you please complete these records
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: by sending us the final determination? And I've got email
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: to that effect from sor NARA staff to senior arm
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: staff making sure that they had all the copies of
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: the final determination.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Mark speak a little bit too on on
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: NAR's role and and all this the problems with with
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: these archivists and and a big problem that I've been saying.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people are like, oh, we
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: you we need to release the files and ship but
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of files that still aren't digitized and
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: available online, which I think is an even bigger problem
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: when you look at the volume of things. If you
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: could mark to speak a little bit to that, and
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: because I know you brought that up to Luna in
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: the letter, m.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: Hmm, yeah. Well, I mean, no one is drilled down
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: better on the archivist duties under the JFK Act than
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: than Andrew. You know, they're called ministerial duties. In a nutshell,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: the archivist function is to collect, organize, and publish in
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: the Federal Register the JFK Records Collection. It does not
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: have discretion to make declassification decisions. The only other duty
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: it had under the JFK Records Act after the Review
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Board went out of office in September of nineteen ninety
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: eight was to periodically review records in the collection based
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: on what the decisions of the Review Board. Okay, so,
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: and why that's important is, like I said, the Archive
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: has said no discretionary duty to continue the job of
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: the review Board. If every record had been transferred to
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: the National Archives within the three hundred days with an
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: identification aid stating what the agency said, the reason they
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: sought postponement for. So, if the agency got their records together,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: organize them, transferred them to the archives, and then they
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: identified a set of records that said, oh, we can't
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: we need this redacted or withheld for a bit of time.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: We're going to ask the review Board to do that.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: They're going to state the reason why the review Board
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: to make the decision, issue the order that Andrew mentioned,
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: and then with that order, with the associated record would
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: go into the collection. And if the review Board said
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: this record can be released in two thousand and six
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: or two thousand and eight, or even in twenty seventeen,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: at the end of the line, the Archive has had
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: a duty to follow those orders. And Andrew, no one's
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: better to talk about what he's found so far than Andrew,
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: but it's clearly not been done. And the reason that
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: it's important to have all the record of the review
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: board's work in those final orders there should be over
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: twenty seven thousand of them per Judge two nine's testimony,
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: is it creates the foundational record of what the review
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: board saw. Right, and then if you look at the
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: number of records that are in the so called collection now,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: whether they were transferred to the Archives before the Review
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: Board or after. How many are you talking about three
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: four hundred thousand, Andrew, I mean the number of records.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's a staggering number.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Staggering.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: It's it's one hundred times with the Review Board saw
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: So if the National Archives did respond to Andrews foyer
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: request to show all the ARBs decisions that it should have,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: then it shows in black and white how many documents
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: the Review Board did not see.
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: So yeah, that's a big point.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: I mean who is handling them? And Okay, I get it.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: The Review Board only had three years of solid work.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: And Andrew can explain you know that the so the
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: urgency and the rush at the end in August and
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: September of nineteen ninety eight because of the dump of
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: documents that the agencies were doing at the eleventh hour,
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: maybe by bye By with a purpose right to create
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: some frenzy there at the end, But the end of
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: the day, collect organized publish the problem that we were seeing.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: And it's not really speculation, it's the best educated guess
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: is that after the Review Board was waited out by
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: the agencies. There was a period between ninety eight and
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: twenty seventeen where there was no periodic review. And in
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: whatever releases we saw then, was it based on a
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: review board decision or was it random? And is it
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: everything that actually is at the archives? What we saw
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: in twenty twenty five? Is it everything that is at
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: the archives? Was Trump's order fully carried out? We don't
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: know unless there's a full catalog and index that the
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Archives was supposed to maintain. So I kind of hopefully
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: answered your question.
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: You know, I just want to jump him before we
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: move on, because, like Mark and I are going to
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: keep hammering on this, we have a law. Right Conquerors
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: passed a law called the JFK Records Collection.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: It's not an executive order as.
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: Law, and it's Congress's law. They set up a process.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: They required oversight by the Senate and House Oversight committees
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: to make sure that their process that they mandated would
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: be followed. And so again, like we're having a task
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: force set of hearings, you would think that Congress's own
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: law and the compliance with that law would be the
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: first thing that they go to. Was the law complied
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: with what's the status of the process that we that
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: we mandated by our law. What happened to Congress's records?
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: You know, we don't even know whether all of Congress's
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: records were released or not. And I mean the president
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: really by a number of different laws, but particularly the
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: JFK Records Act Section ninety one says the President doesn't
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: have authority over congressional records, only executive branch records. But
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: we don't know whether there are still congressional records like
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: the House Select Committee, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee.
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: We don't know whether those records are still being withheld
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: or not. And so Congress should be very interested in
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: a protecting their law and protecting their authority over their
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: own congressional records. And so you know, I hope that
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: that Representative Luna and the Task Force aren't done with
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: the JFK case. I think there's at least one and
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: probably two more hearings where they need to call the
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: archivist in. They need to, like you suggested, Rob, they
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: need to call some of the old archive staff that
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: had decision making authority during this critical time between ninety
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: two and twenty seventeen find out what the hell happened?
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: Did you do periodic review? Why the hell not? How
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: about giving us information about when these record dumps happened?
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: Did any happen before nineteen ninety two? Were all of
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: those records given riff numbers? What about post ninety eight?
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: What happened to those?
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Do we all have archivis question because when you think
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: about it and put it into perspective, Okay, when you're
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: thinking about the staff available at the archives, you know,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: you think, okay, this is a government agency, a government entity.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: It should be well staffed, it should be organized.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: With the amount of money we spent.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Right, and just on a microcosm level, if you if
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: you kind of compare it to say, the Wiseberg Archives,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: if you're familiar, well, that's mainly the work of one man,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: you know, and that's a lot of cataloging. It's it's
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: alphabetical in order, everything is organized, the metadata is there,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: you know, it's it's really well done as far as
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: having a online digitized archive goes. And even to that point,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: like everything that's Bart has done with Malcolm's files, right,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: he's you know.
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: Stilling private citizens or.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about the work of one man. So
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: when you're thinking of the government agency NARA and the
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Senior Archive. I don't know how many junior are archivists
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: there are. You know, I'm just trying to get a
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: picture in my mind of of actually how many people
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: are working on this project, because I mean, it is,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: it's a lot, but it seems to fall so short
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: of their mandates and and fall short of.
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: Basic common organizational skills. You know, I don't mean to
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: be flippant here. I mean, in the February tenth memo
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: from the CIA, CIA proposed, you know, staffing and paying
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: for archive staff to help sort through these assassination records.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Of this year people of this year.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: Andrew no that. Yeah, they said, eight, we can transfer
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: them under the current classification back in ninety two, and
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: we'll pay for the staff the positions to to keep
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: declassifying them.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Let's go dig Joe and needs up and put them
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: in the archive. Yeah.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: You gotta wonder if it's intentionally underfunded, because I've heard
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the ARB was underfunded with staffers. You know, they obviously
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: were kind of waiting it out, sending documents in before
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the I guess the deadline was in April ninety four or.
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: And but the deadline I think it was in for
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: all the files to be transferred was sometime in ninety three,
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: okay before the ARB actually sat for its first hearing.
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: And you know what, listen, I mean, I have a
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: huge amount of respect for a lot of the ARB staff.
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: They functioned at an extremely high level. I look the
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: leadership there, Like David Marwell is a top notch guy.
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: Judge Tunnheim was an amazing leader at the ar RB.
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: Jeremy gunn you know, he's had some criticism heaped on him.
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: I think it's it's largely unjustified. That guy put together
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: the whole legal apparatus for the ARRB and such an
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: impressive way. I wish he was more helpful now, I
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: will say that, but I admire the work that he
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: did while he was senior counsel and executive director at
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: the ar RB. They had so many amazing people there.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: They were they were under the gun in terms of
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: the clock ticking from the minute they they got into
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: their office, and.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: It seems they never had a chance. They never really
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: had a chance.
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think certain agencies made sure of that.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when they kind of sidetracked themselves at times too
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: you know, with trying to because as as enticing as
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: it is to get this authority and to want to
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: do yet a third investigation into the JFK investment, you know, death,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: you know, they kind of sidetracked themselves with you know,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: getting miired in the medical evidence and reinterviewing all of
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: these witnesses. I'm glad they did. I'm not saying that
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm not saying that that, but you know, I
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: don't know how much of that was the time wasted.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna I'm gonna differ with you on that. I
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: I think there they're under oath depositions of of the
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: Bethesda and Parkland witnesses. When you go through that stuff
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: with a fine tooth comb, that was the most I
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: personally think that was some of the most groundbreaking work
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: that has happened in the last sixty.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I'm just not sure if it was should have been
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: part of their mandate.
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: Yes, they didn't do it. We would not have it though,
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: And I do think they were pushing the boundaries of
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: their mandate in order to do that, But it was
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: done in a pretty skilled way.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: If they if they hadn't went that route, focusing on
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you know, reinterviewing witnesses and just focus on the documents records.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean, I mean Jim uh De Eugenio
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: put it put it well the other night when we
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: were talking to him. They were not staffed enough on investigators,
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: not on particular issues like the autops here. They weren't
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: staffed enough with investigators to find the records that were
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: out there that were not sent to them.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: They didn't have the hardaways, the lopezes.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like right, So then that that was that if
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: they were staffed properly, they would have had not only
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: the doug Horns who were digging into making sure the
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: medical records were complete that they had, but also making
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: sure that you know, agencies had sent everything over because
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: they had researchers Andrew correct me if I'm wrong, a
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: lot of researcher at the time, telling educating them on
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: what's out there that we that that that you may
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: not have, and they didn't have the investigators to you know,
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: go grab those fully.
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: So So let's let me ask you a hypothetical question.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And this might sound silly. If we could find someone
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: like Malcolm Blunt and we had enough money between the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: four of us to put them up in a hotel room.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: You're the National Archives every day for months and xerox
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the hell out of everything there. Would it even make
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: a difference at this point? I mean, because you said
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: it's such a mess. Isn't there what four hundred and
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: fifty final determination notices found that you found Andrew out
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: of twenty seven thousand, I think that's two percent. How
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: long would it take this fictional Malcolm Blanc guy, we'll smoos.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: The archives, say, stuff that's over there now that Malcolm
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: put up. Most of that stuff is not online. It's
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: not on Mary Farrell. Yeah, it's available with our website.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: And this is just guy, you know, just xeroxs and
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: documents and stuff them in a box and taking them
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: back to the UK.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: And tipping them back. I think a lot of money.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: That's to me. That's the giant problem is we don't
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: even can't even come in the amount of documents that
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: aren't available online or not digitized, as opposed to what
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: they haven't released yet.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: You know, you know it shouldn't be up to us, Andrew.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: You made a good point the other day, but in
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: accounting office, you know it shouldn't be up to citizens
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: to complete the collection catalog and index for them, you know,
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: of course one hundred people.
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, they have a legal mandate under the Act
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: to do that. And I don't know where it is
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: that you can see the twenty seventeen releases, twenty eighteen releases,
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty one. They're all on different they're all on
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: different spreadsheets.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: You can't search keywords in the spreadsheet. You can only
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: search not anymore numbers.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: And there's not a riff number at all. When you
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: pull up a record, you don't know when it went
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: to the National Archives, who reviewed it, if the review
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: board saw it and it you know, it's just it's
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: just so many violations of the statue, you know, just
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: by opening a random record.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think I'm like going off
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: of the rails here by saying I don't think that's
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: not intentional. I think that is very intentional. We used
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: to be able to keyword search, I think the twenty
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: three releases rob which is how we found some of
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: our fines in relation to the Martins, And now you
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: can only search via roof numbers. Why did that change?
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: It couldn't be more opaque.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: And they couldn't make it.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Lack of bodies, lack of no what at the beginning
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: of the year, didn't they like clean house the archives again,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: you know, before these releases.
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think when Trump came in and some disgruntlement
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: with some of the things that the that the archives
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: had done under the previous administration documents.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, I heard this on one of
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: your other shows. I forget which one is Marco Rubio
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: technically the head archivist right now acting? Yeah, he's the
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: acting archivist because I guess that position you'd have to
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: get a congressional or Senate approval. I'm not not exactly sure.
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's one of the agency heads where you need
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: to go through the Senate. Mark what O their position?
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: Does he? So he's Secretary of State, acting archivist, but
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: he's head of one of the intelligence like he's he's
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: a National Security advisor as well.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So obviously he has a lot more things to
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: worry about than JFK records and one of the archives
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: is staff properly.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: How it's an interesting balance, right between being national Security
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: Advisor and being the acting archivist with that control over
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: you know, the JFK records.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So my question is how do we put pressure
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: on Luna or the current administration UH to put an
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: archivist in there that is interested in going into the
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: basement and finding the boxes that are shoved in the corner,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: that are mislabeled or misfiled and this and that. I
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: feel like that's what are as a community we should
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: be focused on now, and I feel like everyone's losing
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: sight of this. Do you disagree? And how do we
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: do it? If you agree? Hmm?
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean having an archives is interested. I mean
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: they shouldn't have any particular All I know is that
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: how many how many records collections that the National Archives
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: have a law behind it, like the JFK Records Collection Act.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know. The answer to that.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Is not the RFK, not the MLK, none of them,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: not the Epstein files, not in the UFO files.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: And they had twenty five years and the ARB could
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: only do what it could do and essentially three years
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: of work. They had twenty five years to gather the
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: ARBs work and then anything else the review Board didn't
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: see and organize it so that people could research that.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: It's not It's not an easy thing to finish but
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: the playbook is right there. And and if they need
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: to appoint a new civilian group, a new arb of
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: people that aren't in Congress, that don't have anything else
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: to do but to go in and finish the job
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: that the first review board could do, that's an option.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: These these oversight committees have jurisdiction over this collection, way
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: long after Representative Luna's Task Force is done.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: And wouldn't even need to be a new law passed
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: for them.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: No, they don't want to then that JFK Act. All
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: they have to do is appropriate the funds for a
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: new review board.
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: Right And you know, here's the other thing. I think
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: it was April twenty sixteen. Martha Murphy was a senior archivist.
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: She was the archivist responsible for handling the JFK collection.
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: She wrote a memo to all of the agencies in
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: the spring of twenty sixteen saying, hey, you know, we've
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: digitized the entire collection of records and we are contacting
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: you agency heads, so CIAAFBI, all the agency heads that
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: had equities in these records, and she told them, we
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: have the twenty seventeen deadline for the release of all records.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: What do you what are we going to do. We
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: don't want to wait the last minute in order to
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: handle these records. Well, guys, we know that these final
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: determinations were literally stapled to the front of every single
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: assassination record. Why didn't they digitize these critical records when
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: they were completing the digitization of the entire arm collection?
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: Uh huh to be they had to physically remove these
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: legal orders from the assassination records before they digitized them.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: It just doesn't make sense. Maybe they lost them at
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: that point. I don't know.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Everything is possible. Everything, Yeah, no, it is speaking. You know,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: some of these records that that were getting released, what
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: are I know, technically right the like the Joe Nevies
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: documents that just came out, for instance, And I know
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: there's there's some others that that Representative Luna has been
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: looking for or asking the CIA to to release that
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: are not technically considered part of the JFK Records Act.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: And I, as a you know, longtime JFK researcher, have
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a problem with records being released
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: specifically to certain researchers who are seeking these documents out
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: and not doing it properly and sending it through to
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: NARA and having them available on their website for all
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: to have and see. Do you guys see a problem
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: with with with this trend?
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: Andrew? Can you think of any exception in the JFK
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: Records Act though, to apply apply to the Joe and
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: Edes files. If they're an assassination record, why wouldn't they
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: be part of the collection?
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's a pretty broad definition of what it's
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: an assassination record, and I think everyone from Judge Tomheim
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: to Representative Luna has said that the Joe and Edese
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: files are assassination records that should have been included in
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: the records reviewed by the ARB. You know, listen, Rob,
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: this isn't the first time that I've heard that specific
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: individuals have received favored access or maybe even exclusive access
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: to some of these recently. I don't know if you
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: can even say released records because they if they haven't
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: been publicly released, but they've been privately released. I mean,
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: there's certainly nothing in the Act that says, hey, let's
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: give twenty four hundred FBI files to you know, someone
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: from the Washington Post or the New York Times or
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: you know, they should be sent to NARA. And properly
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: added to the collection and released publicly. If individuals are
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: getting special access, advanced access, or exclusive access to the records,
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: that's not supported by the law, and and I hopefully,
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: I hope that that practice changes.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just didn't know if the workaround was well,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: these aren't technically JFK related records because they weren't initially
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: reviewed by the by the ARB and considered as such.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: You know, there there was there was little fleeting glimpses
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: into things that got declassified by the ORB when it
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: comes to Joannidi's but you had little bits and pieces.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: This is what you know Morley has been putting together
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: or trying to put together for the past, you know,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: twenty five thirty years with it, you know, insinuating that
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: hey there might be something here with this guy, and
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: but we need more information, right.
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: You know, I I look, I'll just say I think
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: it's a danger when one person is the focal point
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: for you know, access information and choosing who is heard.
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: And you know, there's a lot of potential for problems
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: to emerge when one person has that much power. And
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: I do think that there's an opportunity here for the
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: task Force to engage credible, reliable, and legitimate researchers. There's
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: so many out in the research community that to put
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: all of the eggs and all of the influence in
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: one basket is it has a lot of potential problems.
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: And I don't know whether we're seeing those potential problems
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: or we're seeing possible you know, advantage being taken if
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: there are. And I look, I don't have any details
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: about records only going to one person. I've heard the
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: same rumors as well. I don't know if there's credible
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: information that that's going to support that, but if there is,
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: I think it should be laid on the table. I
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: don't like to speculate, but I will say that I
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: do see problems when power is consolidated in one persons
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: has It's just it opens things up for abuse.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: And look, I'm glad you know that he got them.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: You know he's been formed for all these years. I'm
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: glad he finally got him, even if it's not the
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: operational files, because I just don't think the CIA would
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: ever turn those over for whatever reason. Of course, they're
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: the reason can be speculated all day long as to
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: why they either don't still have the Joe and Edy's
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: operational files, or won't turn over the Joe and Needy's
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: operational files. Well, Joe, let's let's get into this a
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: little bit. I know, you guys something here, because when
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: it comes to the narrative of certain of certain things
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: like this, I think the truth can get lost in
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: the noise in the headlines. Yes, yeah, and it's both
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: of you. Well know, Look, I mean this is a podcast,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: right probably the first ever technically podcast. I mean we're
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: eleven years old. We started back in twenty fourteen. It's
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: been around a while. I've seen people come, I've seen
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: people go, I'm still here. I put my numbers up
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: against anybody out there, not just toot my own horn.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: It's you know, it's you have to be dedicated to
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: your craft and and and do this and and stay
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: consistent for a very long time to be taken seriously
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: in this game. And when you see and you guys know,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: I mean you've been on a lot of these different
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: podcasts JFK related stuff, and this is a very niche subject.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: And when you see certain people elevated to a certain
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: status in the community and given national attention, like you know,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: I can bring you guys on here all day long
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: and your your your big deals in the research community.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: But I don't see you guys on Fox News. I
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: don't see you on with Tucker Carlson. I don't you
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like, I don't see you on
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: thirty forty different podcasts out there or major news outlets
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: getting heard. And you should be and you're glad you're here,
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: but you understand what I'm saying when there's a dichotomy
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: of difference between who's being heard in this community and
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: who's not, and what that voice is saying, the one
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: that's being heard the loudest. And uh So, Joe, let's
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: get into this real quick and kind of parse through
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: things because we've all heard this narrative before and we
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: just wanted to clear some things up and and dispel
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: some some somes some misinformation. Andrew, right, is that is
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: that okay to say? Sorry, I've been consulting my lawyers.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: We get too deep into this, So Joe take it
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: away and let's kind of parse parse this out, uh
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: and see see what see what the guys think about this,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: because yeah, you know it's that I don't see anybody
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: else saying, right.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and now I'm interested to get in getting
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: their thoughts, and uh, I just want to preempt that
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: by saying I heard about this the segment on your
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: other podcast, Rob Quick Hits with Doug Campbell of the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Dallas Action podcast of who I.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: That one that's frowned upon in Canada? That podcast not
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: from Ontario.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: And I heard this a few weeks ago or a
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: month ago, and like my kind of jaw dropped because
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: what I was under the impression of this whole time
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: was that Georgio n Edies brought out of retirement to
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: kind of obstruct run interference for the HSCA that whole
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: narrative that we've been told and maybe people are still
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: telling it is not only wrong, it's actually the opposite.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: And too, you know, the Joe Edies was brought out
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: of retirement to run interference. You know, that's that's been
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: the narrative for.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: A long time. A while, yes, a long time. So
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: we're going to April nineteen seventy eight. The HCA is
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: already in session here Georgia, and he is not working
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: for the HSC at this time. In fact, he had
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: he had some medical problems and the CIA picked a
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of kind of bigger big cows, you know, people
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: that have been there a long time to retire and.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: Just to this is eight April seventy eight, so almost
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: halfway through seventy eight. The HSCA is done by January
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: of seventy nine, so we're really talking about a six
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: or seven month window of the three years that the
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: AGENCA was active.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yep. And it says here, based on and
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: this is forgive me because I'm reading a cursive here,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: so bear with me, based on the current medical problem.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Don't put pressure on this person, doesn't say person, Let
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: him send it in himself when he gets ready. Don't
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: worry about it now. We have memorandum to the Chief
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: of the re Investigation Section, Subject, George joanides the above
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: subject is one of the special rip cases that is
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: of interest to the Director of Security. On April twenty eight,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: seventy eight, Subject was contacted telephonically to ascertain whether he
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: had received the Reinvestigation Supplemental Personal History Statement PHS. I
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: know there's so many different groups here. Subject.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: Further, he doesn't mean rest in peace, thank you for
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: your service. You know we're retiring you it's a was
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: it the retirement in place?
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: I think yeah, I mean it kind of kind of
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: means that in a sense, but not exactly. Yeah, I'm
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: not exactly sure. I think it's says it's sure shortly.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Subject further stated that he has recently experienced open heart
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: surgery jorn Edes, and that he was working part time.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Subject admitted that the undersigned was lucky to quote catch
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: him because he Subject John Edes was not supposed to
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: be at work. So here he is after surgery. He's
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: not supposed to be working. He's working. They called him.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Subject asserted very firmly that he understood. The Subject also
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: stated that he would submit his PHS form in two
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: weeks when he finished his business. So this is the document.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: This is one of the fifteen special interest cases where
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: which are supposed to be fully completed by May nineteen
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: seventy eight, and I mean seventy eight. And this is
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: the fifteen people were trying to get to retire. Mister
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: john Edes was approached very luckily. And now we have
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: a letter from Chief of the Career Management Staff of
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: the CIA, Robert Brown, Junior. Subject George John Edes. Please
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: find the attached file on Officer Johan Edes is a
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: quote D careerist who has recently undergone major surgery. As
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: a result of the surgery, Joe Edes does not believe
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: he would be able for a PCs assignment overseas, and
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: thus his comparative ranking and value to the Operations Directorate
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: would be limited. Aka. I'm sick really can't be of
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: much use. Joe Edes has a law degree and feels
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: that he might make a solid contribution with his legal background.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Shout out you both an operational experience gained in some
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: twenty years of do service to either OGC or OLC.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Mister jo Edes does believe that his health is sufficient
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: to permit travel TDY travel either domestically or overseas, and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: would have no objection to such work. I am therefore
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: forwarding his file and ask you review it for possible
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: openings in your respective offices to determine whether there might
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: be a suitable position for mister joe and Edes. Okay,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: so they're trying to find him a job, then pay
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: attention to this day, guys. June fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: it has been brought the attention that the Central Cover
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: staff that the above named individual is leaving the agency
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: in January nineteen seventy nine, So two days before Johan
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Edes is tasked with HSCA, they're already saying about six
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: seven months later, you're retiring in January seventy nine. That's it,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: but we'll try to accommodate you to figure out something
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: in the meantime. Two days later, the above name subject
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: Joe Needs was interviewed and Interrogation Research Division under the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Present Policies and Job Assignment Legislative Council to the Hoca Okay, and.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: Real quick, Joe, I just want to point out that
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Joe and Needs at this point is a level GS sixteen,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: which is at that at that time, the highest paid
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: level of government employment. And just to put that into
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: perspective that I believe he was a GS fifteen in
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: the mid sixties and here we are ten years later
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: and he's up to sixteen. And I don't know how
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: long he's been at sixteen, but these are the type
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: of people that the CIA was looking to retire of
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: the fifteen. You know, these are these are very highly
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: paid guys. They're really not getting out much out of
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: anymore at this point, and I would like to see
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: them retire because not long after this the government would
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: change their entire pay scale and eliminate at this level
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: of achievement and pay the sixteen is gone. I believe
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: now that it's the high she can go as fifteen,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: I think yes, looking out of my ass.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Though, No, but you're right, I mean, listen, I mean,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: just like a business, they're trying to get rid of
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the older people that are making a lot of money
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: that like Joean Edes, who just went through open heart surgery,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: is not contributing much anymore. Right So, the House Committee,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, rob's established in September seventy six, and
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Joan Edes doesn't join until June seventy eight, most seven
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: months before it ends. So he's really joining in at
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: the very end. He wasn't put in there to obstruct
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: it from the very beginning. And of course you could
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: make the argument that you know, they were making their
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: final reports at this time, but you know a lot
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: of the interviews that had already been done.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: Right, well, correct me if I'm wrong too. The the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: CIA had a pretty good hold of what it was
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: letting the HSCA see anyway, as far as as far
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: as I remember, when it comes to the House Select
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Committee on Assassinations interworkings with the CIA, that it was like, Okay,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: the HCA could request documents, right, and they would make
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: them available to the HCA investigators who would have to
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: come to them be presented with these documents and say, Okay,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: you can read them, and you could take some notes,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: but you can't photocopy them, and you can't take him
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: out of his room type of thing.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a pretty decent choke hold, if you will.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: They had on their own documents when it came to
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: the HSCA, so to insinuate that, oh, we need to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: bring in you know, George Joe needs to just to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: make sure that you know, these sensitive documents aren't turned
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: over to the hscas.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I'm not saying that George Johannes didn't
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: do some shady stuff and obstruct the HCA towards the end,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I think any liaison with from the CIA would have
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: done almost exactly the same. He just happened to have
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: a perfect background and and wanting to extend his career
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: a few more months that they found Well.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: Joe, let's be clear, I mean, really, what you're saying
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: is that the naire narrative and just strictly that the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: narrative that he was brought out of retirement based on
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: these documents showing that he was maybe off on disability
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: after his heart attack, but he was still employed by
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: the CIA, but he wasn't on duty. He was off
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: on medical leave maybe, but when he was able to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: work again, that he was never removed from the CIA.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: He was always active as an employee with the CIA
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: right through until he retired in nineteen seventy nine.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: What you're saying is that narrative is not consistent with
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: the records that you found right correct. So what you're
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: not saying is that George Joean Edies didn't frustrate the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: work of Eddie Lopez and Dan hard Way in the HSCA.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: You're not saying that he didn't not disclose his activities
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: in the Central Intelligence Agency with relations with the DRE.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: You're not saying as like the really nefarious stuff that
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: is being alleged against him. You're only saying that he
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: wasn't brought out a retirement and that narrative is is
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: not correct. If the records that we're looking at are
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: are accurate.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's what I'm saying.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm seriously what you know Scott Breckinridge was doing,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: you know, as far as determining what what documents that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: he was going to let the HCA guys see, you know,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: And did did they even ask Joan Needs anything about
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: his personal services the CIA as as it pertains to
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: the case or were they just dealing with this guy
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: as an intermediary type. Did they even have it of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Joe Nedie's true involvement at the time.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: It kind of makes me chuckle because this seems to
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 5: be almost like standard operating procedure. You bring the people
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: in who know their stuff about the issues that they're
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: now going to be handling. I mean that Ruben Ephron guy.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: I don't know whether we talked a better than our
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: last show, but you know, he was intercepting Oswald's mail
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: back in the late fifties and early sixties as part
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: of HD lingual So he was a CIA officer in
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 5: like from from I think the forties right through until
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 5: the seventies, you know, intercepting Oswald's male and he was
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: brought onto the Warrant Commission, you know, to be the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: Russian interpreter for Marina Oswald. I don't see anything in
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: the record where he said, oh, you know, your honor,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: Justice Warren. Just as a matter of disclosure, I work
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: for the CIA, and in fact I was in charge
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: of intercepting Oswald's mail. If that's not too much of
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: a conflict, I'm happy to offer my Russian interpretive services
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: for Marina Oswald.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: You know, nobody asked him either. That's the thing, you know.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: I imagine Alan Dulles sitting there, you know, giving them
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: a little wink, you know. So I don't know, like
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: I mean for me that the Joe and Edie story
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: is still like, it's still pretty interesting, but it's not
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: the end all be all of the assassination case. It
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: doesn't touch on Dallas in a lot of ways. It
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: touches on, you know, the cover up, It touches on
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 5: sheep dipping Oswald. And you know, certainly it looks like
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: some of the story that's being promoted over the last
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: few years about Joe and Edes was not consistent with
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: the records that were now CIA.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and these files are basically saying, look, the CIA
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: internally wanted him to retire. They wanted him to retire,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: but yeah, uh, he didn't want to yet, and he basically,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: you know, after his heart attack, decided, you know, hey,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: I'm still good. I'll fly wherever you want me to.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: I can still do this kind of thing.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: And they were like, I hate to say it. I mean,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: I don't trust like these records. I'm sure they came
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 5: from the CIA. You know, Do I trust the records
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: to say exactly what was happening, you know, as a
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 5: word of God. No, I don't, you know, just like
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 5: I won't trust the Russian record Kurts when they come
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: out either. I mean, to me, you have to really
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: be skeptical and highly critical of all of these records.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: I don't know, Mark, Just does that make sense to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: you what I've just said.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this whole thing about whether he retired
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: or not. I mean, what I know about Joe and
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: eighties is he became a problem for the HSCA, particularly
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: Dan Hardway and Eddie Lopez. Dan talked about on May twentieth,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: right when they were getting into their deep dive of
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: Mexico City. He made it almost impossibly changed the rules
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: on how to get CIA records, and they never disclosed
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: his operational activities In sixty three, he was promoted to
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: a very high level position in JM WAVE in the
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: summer of sixty three was running the DRE in New
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: Orleans when Oswald was there and clearly was brought in
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: by the CIA retired or not. Apparently it was not
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: to to cover up as much as possible their their
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: activities with Oswald in late sixty three. It stops really
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: after New Orleans, it doesn't. It gets into the possible
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: FPCC operation in Mexico City, if Oswald was even there
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: engaging in that. We know they use his name, image
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: and likeness there as an imposter. So you know, there's
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: gets gets really into you know, why he was at
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: the HSCA, whether he was retired or not. And I
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: think the record's pretty clear now that he was there
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: to make it impossible for them to get the the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: the the the things that that Jeff Morley and Dan
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: Hardway have now talked about in the Task Force.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, And and I just I just want to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: finish one last thing I have here, just going to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: his Medal of Merit in nineteen eighty one as Honor
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: and Merit Awards, and they go through as career and
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: they talked about he was brought from Greece, brought back
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: from Greece, put back into Greece, engaged in Soviet and
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Cuban operations in sixty four sixty five, back into Athens
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: until nineteen sixty nine, Vietnam until in nineteen seventy two.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Chief of Covert Operation Staff, Western Hemisphere, seventies seventy four,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: you go to seventy five, Rob, you said, promotion at
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: GS sixteen and then in January seventy six selected to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: head East Ages Division Operations, Evaluation and Management Staff, and
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: you know only six months later or actually no, two
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: years later, I'm sorry. And then in June seventy eight
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: he continued this assignment until June seventy he was selected
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: to assist the agency's senior coordinator for the HENCA. So yeah,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: My only point here is that the Joint East thing
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: I think is extremely interesting, intriguing, but it doesn't end there,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: and we as researchers shouldn't be satisfied with what we've
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: got with just these Joinees files. We should be demanding
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: the operational files. We should be most importantly, because I'm
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: sure YouTube would agree, getting Luna and Congress and Trump
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: to to comply with the JFK Records Act. And I'm concerned,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: as I think you two are, and I know Rob
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: is that this is distracting. And I think the KGB
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: files that are going to come out in the fall
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: are also distracting. They have nothing to do with the
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: JFK Records Act.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: Not to mention, if the Republicans lose the House after
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: this November, do we lose Luna too?
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're gonna have Crocket heading this committee, so it'd
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: be a nightmare. We have a very small window here
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: to make progress. And that's and that's what your article, Mark,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: I think really honed in on, is we can't lose.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: We can't take our victory laps. We can't, you know,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: lose focus on what the main issue is, and I
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: think that is figuring out what the hell is up
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: with the archives finding those boxes in the bottom corners
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: of the basement, finding those last two years of a
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: seventy seven, seventy eight ARB or what's the word. It's
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: like annual summaries? Is that right? Wrong? What?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah? Those Samuel reports, they don't they only exist for
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: ninety five and ninety six and six.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: We're admitted with that six one omitted the appendix, right,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: so it's not even complete. Yeah you really.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: I mean that's an end of the line quest for
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: those right.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: So I think, and what and when people ask me,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: what can we do right now in late August of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five to put pressure on Luna or this
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: administration or Congress or the archives, what can we do
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: to get people to comply with this act and to
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: get the documents out there without getting distracted by you know,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: something like Joe needs as an example.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Joe, listen, this is this is exactly the problem.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: I think this has always been the problem with the
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: JFK case. You know, they pull a rabbit out of
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: the hat in terms of letting like a really exciting
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: record released, and everyone focuses on that one record for
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 5: a period of time and then it dies down. The
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 5: whole JFK case kind of goes quiet, and then there's
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 5: a little bit of rumbling. So they pull another record,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: specific record about something that really doesn't have anything directly
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 5: to do with the actual assassination. You'll see, everything's on Oswald.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 5: Nothing is really what happened in Dallas. And I mean
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 5: they're keeping our eye off the ball here. So your
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 5: viewers and your listeners like this is it sounds like
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: a Jerry Lewis telethon, you know. But write an email
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 5: to Representative Luna's office and say, hey, you have the
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 5: JFK Records Act. Yeah, require the archivist to account for
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: all of the records. Not this record over here or
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: that record over here. Let's make sure that the archivist
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: and the agencies have complied with the law that you
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: pass back in nine two. Call them in, call the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 5: CIA and call the archivist in and make sure that
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: they've complied with the Act to the letter of the law.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but we don't really have an archivist right now.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: I had archivist, do we? I mean, where there's Lunar
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: going to call on Rubio.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 5: That's not really well, Secretary Rubio, he can either show
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 5: up and answer questions himself, and I'm sure like he's
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 5: a he's a talented guy. They can require answers after
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 5: a hearing. He's going to have to commit to providing information.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: They can call him back to the Oversight Committee if
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: the task force ceases its work, you know, or Secretary
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 5: Rubio can delegate it can delegate that or have someone
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 5: with him during the hearing, also answer questions have a
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: past archive, who is actually responsible for the handling of
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 5: the records with detailed on hand knowledge about how the
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: practices went with the transfer of records, the cataloging of
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 5: these records as they came from the FBI and the
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 5: CIA and the other agencies. You know, there's so much
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 5: work that's been left undone, and I do think, you know,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 5: the media is just falling in lockstep with this whole
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 5: Joe and Edie story. You're only seeing one person in
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: the media talking about virtually one subject for the last
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: two and a half months. And I know, well since April.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: Or the FBI files, the twenty four hundred JFKFBI files
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: that were found that I think we're Carlos Marsolo files.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: Well you know what started interrupt But like you know,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: in thinking like big picture, if I'm a list or
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: a or any of us, or just someone who wants
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: to know, I mean, a good question to Luna and
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: to Rubyo or anybody else anyone can email, is how
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: do I know and verify that everything that's been received
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: from agencies okay since nineteen ninety two, whether it was
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: reviewed by the review board or not is now fully
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 4: released after the twenty twenty five release. Okay, how do
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: I know and verify that? That gets to the heart
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: of the full catalog and index. So if they ask
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: that question, like, okay, you're telling me after Trump's order,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: after these eighty thousand pages of this year, is that everything?
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: How do I know and verify that? Is there anything
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: still left at the National Archives? Even throwing the HSCAC
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: questered collection as an example, which I put in my
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: in my letter to Representative Luna, you know, the CIA
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: suggested they transferred it over before the passage of the
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: Record's Review Act? Was that review the board? And if not,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: what's the status? Why are you Congress? These are your records?
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: Have you are you to turn? Are you you know,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: dedicated to the full release of your own records? And
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: who's going to handle that? How do I verify that?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: That's how do you verify it? I mean that that's
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: really that that's a drill down question. And you know what,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 5: it may not be as sexy as as like heart attack,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: guns or whatever was the last distraction of files, But
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 5: that's what we need to do. We need to demand
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 5: verifiable proof that the records are being transferred, properly reviewed
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 5: under the standards of the Act and released yep, agreed
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 5: and cataloged. You know, how how come I can't search
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 5: for this stuff?
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: I think that's just a basic function of of some
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: some code that they can just do on the website
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: to make things searchable. I mean, they've done it before,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: and there's no reason that they couldn't do it again,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: at least, you know, sometime in the future.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it seems like they're going out of They're
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: doing everything possible to make it as hard as possible
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: to search for files. I mean, I mean, Andrew, you
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: went to the archives before Lancer last year. You had
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: to you know, a pre book, right, you have to
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: tell them what you were looking for, and what you
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: found you actually kind of found by accident that was
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: kind of misfiled, right.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: It seems that way. Yeah, that's for sure. And you know,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: Mark and I have over the last few weeks we've
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: been drilling down on certain a certain period of files
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: because you know, we haven't really talked about this. What
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: we found in that February ten, nineteen ninety two memo.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 5: It was just so obvious that you know, in December
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 5: of nineteen ninety one, Oliver Stone's JFK is released, and
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 5: you can see an almost immediate reaction at the CIA
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: going holy shit, like that last screen is going to
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: kill us. With the HSCA records not being released until
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty nine, we got to figure out what to do.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 5: And so I mean that twenty three page memo that
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 5: was ordered by the Director of Central Intelligence to create
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 5: a strategy, not just a strategy, but to inventory all
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 5: of the records that they're concerned about, especially the HSCA
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 5: sequestered records, inventory those and create a strategy how we
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 5: can keep them classified. And the memo really details that.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 5: But then we're also learning that there were a whole
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: bunch of other memos in that same timeframe that deal
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 5: with other issues. And I mean, I'm just waiting, you know,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 5: for to discover like a memo that basically has a
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 5: media strategy on how to deal specifically with Oliver Stone's film,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 5: because it's pretty clear that the media was on board
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: with even before the film was released, to disparaging the film.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 5: And then Gerald Posner came out with his book in
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 5: ninety three, and it was just a full court press
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: against what the ARB was going to do. And the
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 5: fact that the Act, eight months later after this memo
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 5: was created, comes out with a carve out for records
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 5: that are to be transferred before the passage of the Act.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 5: You're just sitting here going how much of this was
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 5: just all planned out in detail?
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And Mark, I just want to read a little
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: bit from your recommendations here on your article, and I
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: can agree more because I think we do need to,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: of course conduct another hearing but with past and present
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: senior officials with the CIA and National Archives regarding the
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: handling of this questered information collection of HFCA assassination records.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: If we can get these archives people in front under oath,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: in front of Congress, that would go a long way.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: And and you know, I know they've kind of been
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: like cycling through archivists and assistant Archive acts and whatever.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: But the National Archives needs to comply with a JFK Act.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: You don't need to pass another law. You just need
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: to tell Luna and probably Comer because she doesn't really
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: have final subpoena power, really, right, you need Comer to
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: really like give like the heavy hitting subpoenas.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the first question i'd ask, and it
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: shouldn't have to be up to any of us to
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 4: do a foyer request for this is you know, mister
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: or miss archivists, are are you willing to provide a
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: receipt a transmission receipt of every assassination record you received
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: from an agency or office starting as of October twenty sixth,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety two to present? Are you willing to index
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: and catalog those?
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: And are you.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: Willing to release the review boards final determinations showing what
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: they reviewed and put that out there for an organized fashion.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's what I would ask the Star straight forward, right.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you both this. Do you think
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: that the nineteen ninety seven and the nineteen ninety eight
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: ARB kind of annual summaries? Right? One could argue and
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: won't have to argue hard the most important of those
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: annual summaries? Do they still exist?
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 5: And they never issued them?
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: They?
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 5: Look?
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean they never issued them? Do
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: you mean?
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: So?
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 5: You know? Under Section nine nine of the Act, the
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 5: ARRB was legally required to create an annual report and
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 5: they were supposed to end their operation in October of
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 5: I think nineteen ninety six. They got two extensions that
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 5: ended their operations in September of nineteen ninety eight. Okay,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 5: none of the extensions kind of dismissed their obligation and
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 5: their legal duty to file in annual report. But there
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 5: was an agreement with Congress that they would give Congress updates.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 5: But those updates I don't think included providing full copies
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 5: of the final determinations. Okay, So how it's been explained
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: to me is that they were so under the gun
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 5: in ninety seven and ninety eight just completing their essential task,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 5: which was to review the records and issue final decisions
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 5: on those records, that they probably didn't No, I know
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 5: they didn't issue annual reports in ninety seven and ninety eight,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 5: and like you said, Joe, in nineteen ninety six, their
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 5: annual report omitted an appendix with all the final determinations.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 5: So that is I've ended my search for those annual
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 5: reports because I've been told that ninety seven and ninety
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: eight do not exist. And I know, as a matter
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 5: of fact, the ninety six annual report did not have
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 5: an appendix containing all final determinations, even though they were
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 5: required under the Act to include such an appendix. Okay,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: I'm not really okay with that, but I understand why
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 5: it happened. Does that make sense?
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: It does? It does? I just didn't realize that they
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: just didn't even go through the effort to doing it,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: because you could see the pattern, right, they're on track
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: in ninety five, ninety six, they're kind of on track.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: They'll leave out the appendix. Ninety seven ninety eight, they're
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: completely off track. You know.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 5: I scoured all of the internal emails of the ERRB
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 5: to see if there was even a discussion at a
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 5: high level to say, okay, we're not going to do
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 5: an annual report for ninety seven and ninety eight. And
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 5: I searched for hours through hundreds of thousands of email
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: and I couldn't find even a discussion where that happened.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: It may exist somewhere, I might have missed it, but
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: I was pretty thorough in reviewing the whole database of
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 5: ARRB email. I did find some really interesting stuff in
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 5: the email messages from various researchers and internal between between
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 5: the members of the staff at the ARRB, but I
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 5: didn't find any explanation or and I've asked. I asked
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 5: both Judge Tunheim and Jeremy gunn Is thirty years ago,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 5: I go, was there a policy decision or did the
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 5: board approve? And there was no recollection of that specific question.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 5: But I can say for ninety five and ninety six
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: the annual reports were really big productions for the Board
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 5: because they were like sixty seventy pages long. For both
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 5: of those years, they went into fascinating detail about the
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 5: work of the ARB, the problems, all the appeals from
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 5: the f BI. It like, I can send you copies
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 5: of those annual reports for the two years. They're worth
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 5: reading because you can see what they were dealing with.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: You found them in Connecticut, I believe, right.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, that's the Quinnipiac Law Library.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll go up there search for the other two.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: I'm available.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a chaotic quest, that's for sure. They just
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 5: don't exist. We never see Joe again.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, I'll be lost in the Quinnipiac archives. But no,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: I really think you both are doing God's work. And
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: I'm really personally, you know, a very encouraged and also
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: discouraged at the same time. And I don't really know
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: where to go from here if I'm being really blunket.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: But I think Mark's article lays out a really good
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: next step forward. Why we want to have you both
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: on it because it's really important and it's the law.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: We just have to tell people to follow the law.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: But if people are busy taking victory laps for whatever reason,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: personal reasons they have for doing it, that's not going
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: to happen. So I just want to keep the pressure on.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: I wanted to tell our audience of and educate them
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: on this and to write. So would you say, because
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: I heard you say, write your congressman, So for example,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: I'm in Connecticut, extremely liberal state. It would do no good.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: So should I just write Luna instead? Because writings say
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: Senator Chris Murphy, who's like horrible, would be almost worthless?
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: So how would you suggest the people that listen to
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: this episode kind of go about?
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 5: There are a lot of active representatives on the task force.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 5: Representative Burleson, he wrote a really strong article in the
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 5: Daily Signal literally calling for a full investigation into the
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: assassination that hasn't happened in a long time. So c
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 5: C Representative Burlason. Representative Tim Burchette from Tennessee. He's asked
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 5: some excellent questions during the during the Task Force hearings.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 5: He appeared on the Seawan Ryan Show and this was
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: one of the big issues that they talked about, the
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 5: Kennedy assassination on the Seawan Ryan Show. And you know,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 5: Representative Burchette has I've communicated directly with Representative Burchette. I
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 5: spent an hour in his office in Washington, d C.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 5: Last November. He was he was very welcoming and interested
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 5: in respect to the congressional records that were being withheld.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 5: He understood that issue completely. I've commune continued to communicate
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 5: with his office, so you know, send it to your
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 5: local representative. Definitely send any correspondence to Representative Luna and
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 5: then also include some of the other representatives on the
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 5: task force. Representative Crane. Again, you can tell he's very
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 5: interested in this, he cares about it, and he's been
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 5: He's been one of the few members on the task
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 5: Force to stay right to the end of almost every hearing.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 5: He's there, he's present, he's asking good questions. So I mean,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 5: those four representatives, I would I would see them all
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 5: on any correspondence and I don't know, you can email
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 5: the president as well. The more the President hears about it,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of these representatives need to know
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 5: that that they've done a pretty good job to date
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 5: on this just by holding these hearings. And you know,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 5: Paul Blow, he's done a recent survey of the research
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 5: community to see how people have responded to the Congressional
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 5: Task Force.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Participated in it.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 5: Oh did you good? Good? You know what, The results
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 5: were pretty impressive. I mean, at least, like, I'm not
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 5: partisan in this, I don't. I'm Canadian, so you know what,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 5: I just want I just want the United States to succeed,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 5: my country to succeed. But you know, the Republicans on
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 5: the task Force have gotten pretty pretty high marks from
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 5: the research community. By like, it's not perfect, and no
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 5: one says it's perfect, but you know, they've done a
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 5: pretty good job just by having these hearings.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, even from a like maybe liberal researchers and and
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: not to your point, I don't look at this as
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: a bipartisan issue. It really isn't. It shouldn't have been,
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be. It wasn't when the JFK Records Act was
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: vored into law, and it shouldn't be now.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 5: And you know what, whether you love Trump or hate Trump, whatever,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 5: he's moved the dial on this and uh and and
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 5: so is representative Luna, and I feel positive towards there
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 5: being a significant shift in the release of records. There's
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 5: still a lot of work to do, and they have
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 5: an Act of Congress that's backing it up and demanding attention.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the silly way, not really silly, but
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 4: it's just say like, hey, you know your your predecessors.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 4: In ninety two, in response to a movie unanimously passed
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 4: a roundbreaking and historical statute, spent a lot of money
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 4: doing it. The Review Board spent millions and millions of
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 4: dollars to carry out that mandate. And I'm I'm hearing
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 4: now that the job's not done and it's not close
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 4: to being done. So what's up with that? Like, you know,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 4: call the archivest in get into a full record, a
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 4: full catalog of everything that they've received and what's still
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 4: at the archives. That is it needs to be still released,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 4: is everything that's coming out from twenty seventeen to twenty
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 4: twenty five, while be it late? Is that everything? Well,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 4: how do I verify that it just finished the job?
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: I mean it's not the pretty simple ask.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, like I said, there's still things from the
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: from the nineties that were declassified that still aren't digitizing
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: online yet. Yeah, you know, to that end, they definitely
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: need to do their job, and we need to keep
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: our foot on the gas pedal and there that we
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: have and just just keep plowing away and do what
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: we can do and just you know, like Sid Critiz said,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: something is better than nothing, right.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And you know what, guys, I really appreciate you
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 5: having us on to talk about guess I think it
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 5: sadly has not received the kind of attention that you
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 5: guys have just given it. I think it's a big
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 5: issue and it should be front and center. And we
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 5: really appreciate your your understanding of the importance of this.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: We love nerding out with you guys and getting into
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: the week and all this, because, yeah, this is this
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: is something that a lot of you know, they they'd rather,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: you know, read how James Files was on the Grassy
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: Knowle type of thing and not even pay attention to
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: any of this. But you know, if you're a serious
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: JFK researcher and you're really interested in and and getting
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: the documents, and because I think you know that through
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: the documents. They may not ever come right out and
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: tell us the truth and plain sight, but I've always
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: been a fan of trying to piece together some documents
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: that that support each other in ways that they didn't anticipate,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: but that we you're out right, and I think that
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: is where the major breakthroughs are going to come as
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: far as you know, moving forward with all this. Yeah,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: thank you guys so much for coming on the show
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: and welcome the first time. Mark enjoyed, and we'd love
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: to have you back, uh sometime in the in the
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: near future and see if we've gotten anywhere. If anything happens,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: you know, there's always in October November surprise when it
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: comes to the JFK research community, Mark my words, KB
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: finals that's going to be it. Yeah, yeah, or some
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: more Joe needs files that maybe somebody was sitting on.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: We'll see, we'll see what.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 5: Do you never know?
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: And again, these are co authors of the book JFK Chokeholds,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: which we'll put a link to you down here. Support
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: their work. It's a great book. And uh again you
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: can find Mark's articles and I Andrews over at Kennedy's
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: and king dot com. We will link those two in
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: the in the below, in the description, and once again, guys,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on the Lone Gunming
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: Podcast and talking about this. We greatly appreciate it and
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: all of your hard work, and thank you guys so
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: much for coming on.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 5: Cool. Thank you guys.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: Thanks, guys, have a great night.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, keep it up please we need it.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: And for Joe Brelli, this is Rob Clark and folks,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: thanks for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed it and we'll
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: see you next time.