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CTKA formerly published Probe Magazine. Most of the articles on this site first appeared in Probe. We will occasionally add new articles as appropriate. 

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Alex Jones on the Kennedy Murder:
A Painful Case

by Seamus Coogan

August, 2010

Alex Jones’ appalling understanding of the Kennedy assassination led him to endorse the dubious documentary JFK 2 and the equally specious Family of Secrets. As Jim DiEugenio and myself have shown elsewhere on this site, both of these works are very questionable on the relation of George Bush to the Kennedy case. Therefore, it was decided a piece on Jones himself would be a fitting end to CTKA’s journey to the outer limits of rhyme, reason, and research. And to show the difference between Jonestown and what Len Osanic has termed the Legion of Reason.

This is not a review of Jones’ upcoming assassination documentary on the JFK case. Actually, it’s more a warning about it. While I worked on it, it was interesting to note that the majority of the general criticism directed at Jones seems to come from three camps: (1) those individuals who appear to be jealous of his prominent status; (2) those who felt they had been burned by him in some way; or (3) from paranoid anti-Semitic individuals who are even more unhinged than Jones is. (Often it’s a combination of all three.) Jones is so polarizing within his own crank territory, that it was hard to find any credible voices in critique of him. I hope this fills that gap.

In 1996, Jones began his inauspicious rise from community TV in Austin, Texas on a show called Final Edition. From there, the privileged son of a successful dentist (and alleged John Birch Society member) from the wealthy city of Rockwell has become the Internet conspiracy king. His company has spewed forth a number of websites: Prison Planet.com, Prison Planet.tv, Infowars.com, Infowars.Net and the Jones Report (to avoid confusion herein, Jones sites will be referred to as Prison-Planet). Jones’ organization also runs the Ron Paul War Room.

Prison Planet.com seems to serve more or less as Jones’ promotional vehicle for his radio shows. While Infowars.net contains a number of news stories on things like FEMA concentration camps, heroic teabaggers, illegal immigrants, and so on, it is really more or less a link site that tends to feature bullion as its top story (there’s a reason for this). Prisonplanet.tv is primarily multimedia based. The Jones Report is the least updated of the sites and seems to be a collection of Jones’ “best of” stories and, it seems, longer essays.

Jones’ web page assault provided an interesting dilemma for study. As it was often hard to know whether or not he had omitted anything, or if a particular article, link, or interview about any given topic was buried at some other location. Thus, any critic is bound to have stated at some point that Jones has not covered an issue when he may well have. This is no victory for Jones however. It’s a big problem. His accumulation of articles appears to be a calculated move to dominate search engines and thus lasso much contemporary dissent under his own rubric, which, in turn, brings large sums of money: The more hits, the more advertising revenue and merchandise sales for Jones and his close friend, Ted “Goldfinger” Anderson. (Anderson is not only the owner of the Genesis media network, but also a gold speculator. Researcher JP Mroz informs me that Anderson is also something of a hustler, apparently being a little loose with the truth concerning investments in his metal stocks.)

Thus, like any mainstream news network Jones criticizes, he casts a wide net: not for truth, but for profit. Hence, Jones is more or less akin to a fundamental Christian televangelist. Like many televangelists, Jones worships at an altar of religion and hypocrisy. His religion is that of conspiracy, and like many evangelicals (some of whom probably watch his shows), he has taken the teachings of his faith far too literally. In so doing, Jones has melded a unique outlook one could call either “conspirahypocrisy” or “conspiravangelism.”

These two terms are worth keeping in mind. Because though Reverend Jones often advises his flock to find out information for themselves, at the same time he implores his followers to distribute his videos for “educational purposes” and to “wake up” others and buy his products to get the truth. But retail is only one aspect of Jones’ operation. In fact, with the next step he takes, there is little difference between him and the god-awful cheese of Benny Hinn.

In true Benny Hinn Ministries fashion, he exhorts his supporters to help fund his ministry to the tune of some $275,000 with his infamous “money bombs” to help him expand and fight the New World Order. He also receives massive donations from Christian businessmen, who have paid up to $50,000 for Jones’ bullhorn, which he auctions as a means to expand his studio facilities. Unsurprisingly, Jones has become quite wealthy. How wealthy? That is uncertain. Jones keeps extremely quiet about his personal fortune. But most bloggers put it in the millions.

Let us digress from religion and return to Jones’ accumulation of information for, what amounts to, profit. Jim DiEugenio has stressed on numerous occassions that there is nothing wrong with profiting from research. For example, Jim Douglass, author of the thought-provoking book, JFK and the Unspeakable, certainly deserves to reap the rewards of the fruits of his labor; as do Mark Lane, Oliver Stone, Jim Marrs, and Dave Talbot—further examples of dedicated researchers who have, by their discriminating focus, contributed positively to the case. In contrast, Jones casts his net so wide that he not only scoops up all things good, like say, John Pilger, Lisa Pease, and Greg Palast, but he also takes in—or rather, is taken in by— the wild-eyed kookery of Kathy O’Brien, Robert Gaylon Ross, David Icke, and numerous others. He then minces it all together in cans ready for sale with no regard for how polluted the blend or dreadful the taste. Furthermore, there is very little quality control, which means cross-contamination (factually incorrect and contradictory positions) becomes commonplace. This results in, as we shall see, a wild, goofy, circus-type atmosphere in which almost anything can be said without thought or fear of reprimand.

A classic example of Jones’ conspirahipocrisy is that he will stop at nothing to make figures like the Bush family the ultimate evil of the age. A July 24th, 2009, Huffington Post press release discussing Oliver Stone’s praise of Jim Douglass’ book, JFK and the Unspeakable, was placed on Prison Planet. Yet Prison Planet’s good work in mentioning this fine book is quickly scuttled: A search or so later on the Inforwars website turns up a glowing article from May 2009 citing the credentials of Lamar Waldron’s ridiculous Legacy of Secrecy.

Why Lamar Waldron? Well, Waldron (as per his schtick) has tried to cash in on making Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld key figures in the undermining of senate investigations like the Church Committee in the mid-seventies, when any number of Republicans were guilty of crimes. As if being sucked in by Waldron wasn’t bad enough, Jones showed his peculiar form of amnesia by having Vince Bugliosi on his show in May of 2008 discussing his book on the Iraq War. The problem is that Jones obviously hadn’t seen Bugliosi’s 2007 appearance on The Colbert Report, or his numerous talks on YouTube promoting his Reclaiming History, a 2,700 page panegyric for the Warren Commission.

Feminisim & Rockefellers

Despite many of his guests being to the right and no doubt bigoted, in fairness, it has to be said that Prison Planet seems to be a more or less non-racist organization. But Jones is definitely something of a sexist. In one broadcast, Jones took it upon himself to lecture women about their being targeted by advertising (as if women haven’t understood this for years) and being mislead by environmental groups. To top it off, Jones once stole a line from the ever sexist Henry Makow, about how sitcoms have modeled negative and subservient male behaviors.

And it gets worse. Women who consider themselves feminists are by far the most manipulated members of their gender. That’s according to the late (but not great) Aaron Russo. In his last ever interview (conducted by Jones), Russo discussed the cold dark truth that the world’s elites are socialists and that feminism was created by the Rockefellers. Jones enthusiastically mentioned that Gloria Steinem, the leader of the U.S feminist movement, had been exposed as a long-term CIA informant.

Judging from this 2007 Jones/Russo conversation, it is obvious that neither had been aware of the fact that it was a socialist-feminist group, Red Stockings, that had actually exposed Steinem. Jones also displayed no knowledge that the CIA and FBI had infiltrated numerous progressive movements, not just this socialist-feminist one. This is highly ironic in light of the next area of discussion.

The Grandstanding Orwellian Orwell Fan

In 2008, at a peaceful rally in which protestors attempted to recreate the 1967 "levitation of the Pentagon" at the Denver Mint, an uninvited Jones crashed the party and harangued neo-conservative, quasi-fascist Michelle Malkin. How anybody could usurp someone else’s event and then have some of the left-leaning protestors stick up for a woman dubbed “The Asian Ann Coulter” shows a certain talent for the inept, and an extreme need for headline grabbing.

And Jones’ grandstanding appears to know no limits. There is a cleverly edited clip on YouTube entitled, Alex Jones Using Cointelpro Tactics?, in which Jones discusses the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation. Yet the clip also reveals Jones as a self-aggrandizing egomaniac ruining a pro-gun rally in Austin that, once again, he did not organize. (Please also see: Alex Jones is Still a Jackass.) In fact, as one can see from clicking through to the article, it was Jones who came in and disrupted the rally, essentially hijacking it for his own purposes, making it into a circus. In that regard, he is the P. T. Barnum of conspiracy politics and activism. It is this unique blend of conspirahypocrisy which turns Jones into “The Orwellian Orwell Fan.”

Jones often uses the term “Orwellian” to describe seemingly any event. In fact, Jones has made a major presentation about Orwell. (And his many inaccuracies therein are worthy of another critique.) The fact that Jones and the lunatic fringe utilize the works of a known Democratic Socialist and other decidedly left-leaning individuals like Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick (who, if living, would most certainly shun the likes of Jones) is a classic example of how little analysis pervades his unique blend of right-wing pseudo-libertarian ideology. At its core, the Jones’ network believes that the left and right argument is a convenient government con job. How would Eric Arthur Blair (Orwell) respond to this gibberish that Jones spewed at the reopening of the Branch Davidian Church at Waco on September 19th, 1999? : “Victory is ours against the New World Order, against the Communists, Socialists, and the Bankers that run the whole filthy show!”

As seen in The Dark Legacy of John Hankey, Hankey has a bad habit of claiming things he never achieved. So does Jones. In fairness to both Hankey and Jones, this sort of thing abounds in the competitive world of conspiracy demagoguery. It’s a world in which all members are guilty of reinventing history at one time or another: A very Ministry of Truth-like crime.

Here are but some shining examples:

Jones has made a big deal about his infiltration of Bohemian Grove. While he was indeed the first to film the “cremation of care ceremony,” Jones barely acknowledges that it was made possible by English journalist Jon Ronson. Ronson filmed Jones prior to his foray into the grove, in the episode “The Satanic shadowy elite.” Ronson’s measured viewpoint about the proceedings can be seen in an excerpt from his notable book, Them: Adventures with Extremists.

Contrast this with Jones’ summation of the event and judge for oneself who is in charge of the facts.

A few years later, Jones propagated the myth that he was the first radio commentator to announce 9/11 style attacks on America. Except he was not. It was the equally kooky —and depending on whom you talk to—“spooky” Bill Cooper. Cooper detested Jones shtick and called him a liar and sensationalist. Cooper, however, was another conspirahypocrite of ludicrous JFK assassination theories. Namely, that Kennedy’s limousine driver turned around and shot Kennedy in the head. The footage Cooper used to sell this idea was an extremely old 8th generation copy of the Zapruder film which has been soundly debunked by Zapruder film expert Robert Groden. (Please see: Jim DiEugenio; Black Op Radio, Show #470, April 15, 2010.)

In Orwell’s 1984, The Ministry of Truth had the job of turning one-time enemies into long-time allies and vice-versa. Jones has done the same thing. He once denounced David Icke as a potential disinformation agent, likening his “reptilian lizard man” theory to being a “turd in the punch bowl.” Yet Icke’s patronage enabled Jones to patch into the “moon unit” market and the “lizard man” is now something of a regular on his show. Jones is also a pretty poor representative of free speech he claims for us all, since there are a number of websites devoted to individuals whom he has had kicked off his forums.

Is There Life on Marrs? ...There’s a little, but Jones missed it

It’s highly ironic, that Jones was born at Parkland Hospital, the place where JFK died. Because with his and his cronies’ (e.g., Jason Bermas and Paul Watson) limited knowledge of the assassination and what actually occurred, you would think Kennedy had just checked in for a sore throat, pulled back muscle, and a headache.

While interviewing author Jim Marrs on his radio show, Jones showed a noticeable lack of knowledge about his book Crossfire which, along with Jim Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins, had a huge influence on the direction of Oliver Stone’s film JFK. Now, considering the limitations of the day, both books were solid pieces of work. But therein lies a problem. New books by the likes of Jim Douglass and Gerald McKnight have been able to capitalize on a plethora of released documents unavailable to Marrs at the time. By comparison, Garrison’s work (for the most part) hasn’t dated so badly because of its singular focus on his case bought against Clay Shaw. Also, many of Garrison’s suspicions about Guy Banister, David Ferrie, and Clay Shaw have, in large part, been borne out. Many subjects in Marrs’ book, like LBJ, body alteration, and Madeleine Brown, amongst others, have not.

The film JFK has been able to update its information via special editions with additional interviews, A-V essays, and director commentaries. One wonders though, has anybody out there in the Jones’ nexus actually bothered to sit down and listen to any of them? Not likely. The problem is that many conspiravangelists, have become stuck in something of an HSCA and JFK time-warp. It is as if nothing happened before or after this period. These earlier vehicles—The Men Who Killed Kennedy and the first editions of JFK and Crossfire—have become virtual bibles to many unwitting newcomers who are little aware of their limitations. Jones falls into this category, and that’s without apparently even having read the Marrs’ book.

A Short Dissection!

Jones’ July 27th, 2006 interview with Marrs began to break into the bizarre shortly after the 9-minute mark. It is here that Alex Jones shows who he is and what he knows about the Kennedy case.

9:19 Minutes: JFK, Blueblood Scion of The Eastern Establishment: Jones kicked off proceedings by absurdly stating that Kennedy “Came from ‘blue blood’ elites.” How on earth anyone could think of JFK, a 2nd generation Irish Catholic, as being a waspish member of the Eastern establishment is beyond me.

9:36 Minutes: Johnson and Pussy Galore: Almost on top of Jones “blue blood” call, he then promotes Madeleine Brown. Brown may have met Democratic congressman Lyndon Johnson at a party in 1948 in Austin, and may have been one of his many female friends. It’s ironic that Johnson purportedly bestowed the name Pussy Galore on her because Miss Galore, like Brown, is a fiction. (Bennett Woods, LBJ Architect of American Ambition, pg, 247). Brown’s most way-out claim is that she was present at a secret party in Texas where Richard Nixon, John McLoy, J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ, and oil baron Clint Murchison, Sr.—or his son Junior, depending on whose concocted story you read—and other luminaries planned Kennedy’s assassination on the evening of the 21st of November, 1963.

Firstly, Johnson himself was seen by a few thousand people and filmed that night in the company of President Kennedy at the Houston Coliseum. Johnson didn’t arrive in Fort Worth until 11.05 pm on the night of the 21st of November, and it is roundly reported that he wound up his day in the same hotel at a very late hour with his advisors. (William Manchester, Death of a President, pgs. 135, 138).

The same goes for Dick Nixon, who was in town that night with Joan Crawford. This was widely reported in the Dallas press and was still being reported until fairly late that evening. (The Dallas Morning News, Friday, November 22, 1963, Section 1-19) Kai Bird’s autobiography describes John McCloy hearing the news of the assassination while having breakfast with former President Eisenhower. (The Chairman, p. 544) As for Hoover, according to Anthony Summers, it is highly likely (to the point of absolute certainty) that J. Edgar Hoover, like McCloy, was nowhere near Texas at the time. For instance, the next day he was calling Bobby Kennedy from his Washington office at around 1:34 P.M EST with news of the shooting. (Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 394). In fact, in none of the standard biographies of Hoover—Powers, Theoharis, Gentry, or Summers—does anyone note him being in Texas that evening.

A Dallas-to-Washington round trip is around 3-4 hours each way. Why would two very powerful and highly visible 68-year-olds fly to Dallas, Texas to meet with Johnson at some ungodly hour, well after 11:00 P.M CST, compromising themselves in the process, and then fly back from Dallas, arriving home anywhere between 3:00-5:00 AM the following morning? Why do all that when a sinister meeting in Washington could have easily been arranged prior to events. And anyway, as Jim DiEugenio has said, the idea of organizing the plot just a night before is silly (Please see: Jim DiEugenio; Black Op Radio, Show #476, May 28, 2010.)

Hoover, the supposed major conspirator, had believed someone was impersonating Oswald in Russia. Furthermore, during Oswald’s absence on his way to the Soviet Union, it took the FBI and the Swiss authorities months to find the Albert Schweitzer College—which Oswald had supposedly planned to attend.

But it just keeps getting worse for those in the Hoover “plotter” scenario. Hoover once said to President Johnson that the evidence was not strong enough against Oswald to get a conviction, and like Nicholas Katzenbach, said that the public needed to be assured Oswald was the lone assassin. We know some 14 minutes of tape were removed from a conversation Hoover had with Johnson. We also know that Hoover believed someone was impersonating Oswald in Mexico City. (John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 651) Hoover, himself, would go on to later describe how the United States government would be rocked to the core by the real truth about the Kennedy murder, and he would also call the case “a mess, a lot of loose ends.” (Summers, Official and Confidential, pgs. 413-414)

One of the only researchers I know of who has advocated for Hoover’s involvement is Peter Dale Scott, whom we shall touch on later (Peter Dale Scott; Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, pgs. 242-267). Had Jones (or his researchers) ever bothered to look around the Kennedy critical community, he would have found that potential “Johnson did it” allies—like Doug Weldon—repeatedly tried to interview and question Brown with legitimate questions; yet she constantly evaded such questioning. (Doug Weldon: Spartacus Education Forum, post of 4/25/10)

But the hypocrisy and contradiction surrounding Brown continues unabated. Jones’ top researcher, Paul Watson, makes a big deal about Johnson’s highly improbable statement to Brown, “Those SOB’s will never embarrass me again.” What Watson doesn’t tell anybody is that Johnson had also told Brown that oilmen and the CIA had killed Kennedy. The evidence clearly shows that Johnson had grave doubts about the assassination, and was unconvinced, as was Hoover, with the evidence days after the assassination. (Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust, p. 283) And at one point, according to Fletcher Prouty, he even asked J. Edgar Hoover if any shots had been fired at him.

In 1967, Johnson remarked to aide Marvin Watson that the “CIA had something to do with this plot.” (Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 414.) Leo Janos’ Atlantic Monthly article, The Last Days of The President: LBJ in Retirement, which was printed in July of 1973—just six months after Johnson’s death, provides us with perhaps the starkest appraisal of Johnson’s mindset in later life:

During coffee, the talk turned to President Kennedy, and Johnson expressed his belief that “the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy.” A little later Johnson said “I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger.” Johnson said that when he had taken office he found that “we had been operating a damned Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean.” (Atlantic Monthly, July 1973)

Recently released documents citing Godfrey McHugh’s observations of Johnson’s paranoid behavior on Air Force One have cast further doubt on the Johnson-did-it angle. Yet in an odd piece of face-saving for the dwindling Johnson lobby, Paul Joseph Watson, one of the brains behind Prison Planet’s internet information apparatus, believes Johnson on Air Force One to be play-acting to draw suspicion from himself. In doing so, Watson ignored all of Johnson’s previous comments. He utilized Saint John Hunt and Madeleine Brown (arguably two of the least inspiring witnesses the research community has come across) to bolster his case that Johnson was likely hamming it up.

Had Watson bothered to read David Talbot’s Brothers, he would have seen that Johnson panicked at Parkland and told Mac Kilduff that he wanted the announcement of JFK’s death to be delayed till he was safely on the plane, stating his belief in a potential “world-wide conspiracy.” Johnson’s performance at Parkland Hospital and on Air Force One was certainly not mugging. (Talbot, pgs 282-285) It would be interesting to see how Jones, Watson, or anyone else for that matter, would explain away the fact that within hours of Oswald’s death, Johnson’s Cabinet and Justice Department were convinced by Eastern Establishment figures Eugene Rostow and Joe Alsop to take the investigation out of Texas and back to Washington. Whereupon, Allen Dulles—and not the mythical Johnson—would become ringmaster of the investigation. (Donald Gibson, The Assassinations, pgs 3-17).

9:38 Minutes: “Below Par” McClellan: Sure enough, Jones soon spits out the name of Barr McClellan. And in deference to the imagined strength of the Brown and McClellan stories, utters a pure Jones/Barnum piece of oversized hyperbole: “It seems to be an Ironclad case.” Like Brown’s tome, Texas in the Morning, McClellan’s very bad book, Blood, Money & Power, pinning the crime on Johnson, is regularly touted around the Jones Internet nexus. In fact, when McClellan’s book came out, Jones had him on his show for a solid hour, and after the show, pronounced that LBJ had killed Kennedy. One of its main selling points was the disputed Mac Wallace fingerprint supposedly found in the TSBD (Texas School Book Depository). However, John Kelin found that different groups of Johnson-did-it advocates at the time disagreed on its validity.

(A link to an article by me on Greg Parker’s forum, “The Lies of George Bailey,” discusses this issue further. There are also a number of other issues surrounding Barr McClellan as explored in Jim DiEugenio’s review of Doug Horne’s volumes 4 - 5. There is also this conversation between Bill Kelly and Jim DiEugenio on the Spartacus/Education forum, which any new researcher should take heed of.)

But the rest of the McClellan book was so bad that even researchers like Walt Brown—a generally well-known non-kook advocate of the “Johnson did it” club, and no relation to Madeleine Brown—eventually distanced himself from McClellan’s dubious work, which he had once supported. This is what Walt Brown was quoted as saying in public on various Internet forums after the book was issued:

I have no reason to think that his (McClellan’s) work is in any way an attempt at deceit, but at the same time, I have no answers to the “why?” of how it went from a solid, stand-on-its-own-legs work in July to an almost fictionalized account in October.

Alex Constantine is one of the few individuals within the rabid conspiracy circuit who doesn’t try and make out that every man and his dog were involved in the case. In a post at his web site of 7/6/2008 he wrote that McClellan’s son Scott had strong links to Jones’ Great Satan, the Bush clan. How Jones and his crew didn’t pick up on this and run with it is quite puzzling.

11:00 Minutes: Operation Northwoods: (The full details of what Northwoods was about can be seen at the Operation Northwoods page at the Mary Ferrell Foundation. And an interesting twist to the Northwoods tale can be read in the addendum to part II of this essay, which will be available shortly.)

As if what had transpired earlier on in the interview was not bad enough, Jones made another alarming faux pas, i.e., that the Operation Northwoods proposal in 1962 led Kennedy to sack a number of high ranking officials in the CIA and military. In so doing, Jones clearly implied that the Kennedys’ refusal of the Northwoods proposal was part of what got him killed. Thankfully, Jim Marrs corrected Jones. Marrs then reminded Jones that Kennedy’s sacking rampage had occurred a year earlier in 1961. And it was actually caused by the culmination of the investigations into the planning and ill execution of the CIA’s Bay of Pigs invasion. As a result, its prime organizers—Allen Dulles, Dick Bissell, and Charles Cabell—were terminated. As for Northwoods, Kennedy did not react to it in any way except in rejecting it. There is also no evidence that Lyman Lemnitzer, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was fired as a result. Lemnitzer had long been an obstacle to the Kennedys, and his contract as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was simply not renewed. Had he not proposed Northwoods, he would not have been kept on anyhow, as the Kennedys had long wanted Maxwell Taylor in the position. Lemnitzer moved on to be the head of NATO. (Talbot, pgs. 106-108)

Now, some might say that my using a 2006 interview with Marrs is unfair. Jones could probably have learned from his mistakes about Northwoods and the like. After all, Marrs had corrected some of them. And Jones must care about accuracy because the precise historical record is what he is supposed to be about. I mean, that is what he is selling: an alternative view of history that is much more close to the facts than the MSM’s version. Well, what I am about to say brings this all into question. Because two years later Jones got worse, not better. And this is an important point, not just about Jones and his business empire, but also about his respect for history and the JFK case.

The JFK murder is clearly the event that ripped open the guts of the so-called American Century of Henry Luce. Jim Hougan and Don DeLillo have both described the JFK case as the event that tore open the dark underside of the American political system, one that had been previously hidden from the public. And it was this exposure which gave birth to serious alternative thinking and explanations about large historical events. It would later give birth to a whole new literature of revisionist history. Well, by any standard, Jones flunked his test; in two years, he hadn’t learned a thing. In 2008, Jim Marrs introduced Jones to Debra Conway, co-founder of JFK Lancer, at Lancer’s November in Dallas conference. Anybody with a genuine interest in the case would have to be particularly incompetent not to have come across Conway somehow, somewhere. Jones, who maintains he has a high level of interest in the case, seemed to have never heard of either Conway or her JFK Lancer. (Conway: email of July 25th, 2010)

If this wasn’t bad enough, Jones’ defense of Jesse Ventura during his Howard Stern interview on the 21st of May of 2008 was, in a word, embarrassing. Jones makes sensible observers, like his friend Ventura, look as bad as himself. Ventura needs the likes of Jones and Jason Bermas like he needs Dan Rather. The errors the two made concerning the deaths of JFK and RFK are shocking, as was their labelling others as exaggerating kooks. (Please see—YouTube video: Alex Jones Jason Bermas Howard Stern Jesse Ventura)

At 6:46 into Jones’ spiel, he says that 90% of Americans believe the government killed Kennedy. Every anniversary there are polls. On the 35th anniversary of Kennedy’s death in 1998, a CBS poll found that 74% of Americans believed that Oswald did NOT act alone. For the 40th anniversary in 2003, an ABC poll found that “70% of Americans ... believed there was some sort of plot behind the killings.” And the Discovery Channel and the History Channel have repsectively polled a 79% and an 83% belief by Americans in a conspiracy. None of these cited poll numbers are anywhere near the mystical 90% mark Jones conjured up out of thin air.

Jones then mangles further Shane O’Sullivan’s already dubious and orphaned claims about who was at the Ambassador Hotel the night RFK was killed. Read this carefully for it is shocking:

They’ve now come out on BBC, NBC, showing the film footage of the Ambassador Hotel. Three CIA section chiefs from Asia, the famous guys involved with Kennedy—JFK as well; it’s admitted the guy who shot RFK behind him, ahhh, who the coroner said shot him—from behind, Mr. Cesar, was CIA. We have the footage of all these guys there directing Cesar and others right before it happens.

Jones was obviously unaware that Paul Watson’s team (in a rare moment of research competence) actually had the foresight to publish Lisa Pease’s November 2006 misgivings about Shane O’Sullivan’s appearance on BBC2’s NewsNight Programme on November the 20th, 2006. This was not posted on the Infowars website until March 23rd 2008. Jones’ clueless dialogue, with an equally clueless Jason Bermas, about Shane O’Sullivan’s mistake about the RFK case, occurred almost two months later—to the day—on May the 22nd of 2008. Thus once again, in true Prison Planet style, Jones exposes himself as a dilettante who, far from elucidating and leading and empowering his listeners, actually confuses, misleads, and marginalizes them as ill-informed kooks.

Three CIA section chiefs from Asia? (Asia? Where on earth did he get that from?) For most of the period of 1962-68 all were around the JM WAVE station in Miami. They were, according to O’Sullivan, Gordon Campbell, George Johannides, and Dave Morales. Campbell, who was never a figure of significance in the Kennedy assassination, and never a high-ranking CIA official, died in 1962. (Talbot, p. 397) Which is significant, since that is six years before RFK’s assassination. Johannides was a leader of psychological operations at the JM Wave Station, not a “section chief.” Furthermore, the photo shows slight resemblance, bar glasses, between O’Sullivan’s suspect and Johannides. And the evidence says he was in Athens circa 1968. However, Johannides is a genuine figure of interest in the John Kennedy (not RFK) assassination, as Talbot mentions in his book. (p. 397) As for Morales, he is said to be the individual supposedly waving people into position, yet he is a grainy figure that can barely be distinguished. Further, the photo comparisons never actually matched. (See Morley and Talbot.)

But actually, it’s even worse than that for Jones. Because in 2007, in O’Sullivan’s film RFK Must Die, and his book Who Killed Bobby?, O’Sullivan found LAPD documents showing that the two men whom he once took for Johannides and Campbell were actually Bulova watch company employees. And this has been certified by family members. (O’Sullivan, pgs. 469-70)

Obviously, if the men are not who Jones says they are—and they are not—they cannot be, as he says, "directing Cesar and others right before it happens."

Remember, this show was broadcast in 2008. All this material correcting the record was published a year previous. With all the millions Jones rakes in, how much does he spend on quality control and fact-checking? His listeners, if they want accurate information—or at least an attempt at it—have a right to ask him this question.

Jones does get something right. Thomas Noguchi, the Los Angeles coroner did believe that Kennedy was shot from behind (Lisa Pease and James DiEugenio editors, The Assassinations, pgs. 616-618). But he never said, at least in public, that Cesar did it. The evidence surrounding Cesar as one of the shooters is compelling. But we must note, it is compelling, not proven. For instance, it has not been “admitted” by anyone that Cesar was CIA. He seems to come from a complex cabal within the Bob Maheu, Richard Helms, and Howard Hughes nexus. Whether or not the companies he worked for prior to the assassination were all CIA fronts or proprietaries is another question altogether. (Ibid, pgs. 602-606)

We now have the son releasing the video, we have the audio, the guy who was photographed at being at the scene by The Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald, and that, of course, is E. Howard Hunt. I mean, Jason, when does it end?

Yes Alex, when does it end? Saint John, like his father, is a character of curious moral fiber. If one wants to see just how curious, I advise they skip ahead and read the following section “Alex Jones and the Saint.” How Jones can continually refer to Hunt as a credible source is, as you will see, the epitome of bombast. As for the rest of Jones’ rant, he seems to be implying that the contested images of the three tramps in Dealey Plaza taken on 11/22/63 by William Allen of The Dallas Times Herald, Jack Beers of The Dallas Morning News, and George Smith of The Fort Worth Star Telegram show one of them as Howard Hunt. The problem is that when Mark Lane successfully litigated the Liberty Lobby case, he refused to use those pictures in evidence, as he believed they weakened his case. A case which, despite using the testimony of Marita Lorenz, he prevailed in. (Lane, Plausible Denial, pgs. 133-134) Furthermore, the likely identities of the tramps has supposedly since been discovered, though much conjecture and debate about their identity persist.

Now Jason Bermas leaps into the fray (Bermas, like Saint John Hunt, is examined in greater depth later).

But just go to the video tape of the Secret Service by Kennedy that day. As they’re turning the corner at Dealey Plaza one of the Secret Service agents at the back of his car actually gets called off. And he’s not happy about it Alex.

This is what I mean about the issue of quality control and the ethical question of what a host and his guest owe to their listeners. Listeners do not deserve to be misled—whether it’s by Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite or Bermas and Jones. Neither the Bronson, Zapruder, or Altgens films captured what Bermas is describing; nor did any of the other escorts, nor the two hundred or so people in the vicinity witness what Burmas describes.

What Bermas was referring to were the actions between the dubious Emory Roberts, who was in charge of the Secret Service follow-up car, and agent Henry Rybka, whom Roberts ordered off the presidential limousine—not at the corner of Dealey Plaza’s Houston and Main, but, quite clearly, at Love Field.

I really, really wish Bermas had not said this. Because his announcement now sets his master off on a goofy rant for the ages. Again, read the following carefully. You will completely understand why Jones distributes John Hankey’s film and interviews Russ Baker for hours.

You got LBJ on the radio behind ’em calling in the assault, “get ready we’re going on to sniper position 1.” ’Cause, they had kill zones all the way down to the airport. They were gonna keep, keep, you know. And they were ready with hand grenade attacks, bazooka attacks. If they had to, they were going to have military kill ’em and go to full martial law. They had riot troops in the air from the army flying above Dallas.

Let’s break this last speech down. Like John Hankey, it’s the only way one can fully comprehend the complete nonsense that conspirahypocrites spout.

You got LBJ on the radio behind ’em calling in the assault, “get ready we’re going on to sniper position 1.”

Really Alex? What happened is that Johnson asked Herschel Jacks (not an agent), to turn the radio on so he could hear reportage of the motorcade on a local radio station. (William Manchester, The Death of a President, p. 203) Occasionally, he would ask how much further they had to go. Then, Rufus Youngblood, Johnson’s assigned agent, would radio back to his follow up car “And ask them how many more miles and so forth.” (Youngblood Testimony, Warren Commission, Vol. II, p. 151) The closest Johnson ever got to a walkie-talkie was when Youngblood eventually managed to get over the seat and protect him. From there, Youngblood was barking orders to the other agents. (Manchester, pgs. 244-245, Youngblood Testimony, p. 149). There’s nothing hidden here; Johnson admits being near Youngblood’s device:

I felt the automobile sharply accelerate, and in a moment or so Agent Youngblood released me. I ascertained that Mrs. Johnson and Senator Yarborough were all right. I heard Agent Youngblood speaking over his radio transmitter. I asked him what had happened. He said that he was not sure but that he had learned that the motorcade was going to the hospital. (Johnson Statement: Warren Commission; Vol V P. 562)

If this evidence isn’t enough for you, how does logic sound? For Johnson to have coordinated the strike, it meant that he would have had to have undertaken a truly Hankeyian sleight of hand. Because he was sitting next to his wife Ladybird and a few feet away from his arch foe, Senator Ralph Yarbrough. Now, Yarbrough never said anything about Johnson talking into a radio in his Warren Commission affidavit. (Warren Commission, Vol. VII pgs. 439-440) Nor did he say anything about Johnson being in continual radio contact with others to William Manchester in the Death of the President. (Manchester, pgs. 244-245)

H.B. McClain, the motorcycle policeman whose job it was to shadow Johnson’s car, like other patrolmen, didn’t much like Johnson’s attitude towards him and his fellow officers either. He never saw Johnson do anything of the sort. (Larry Sneed, No More Silence, pgs. 162-169). McLain has also voiced his belief in a conspiracy to the author and intimated to myself off camera that a number of his fellow patrolman had privately felt the same way. Thousands of people lined the streets that day and no one saw Johnson speaking into a radio; just like they never saw Secret Service agents being ordered off of cars at the corner of Houston and Elm Street.

They were gonna keep, keep you know, and they were ready with hand grenade attacks, bazooka attacks.

It was hard to pick up where all of this came from. There were plenty of lunatics out there making all kinds of threats against Kennedy. Jones, however seems to have melded every hare-brained anti-Castro Cuban assassination scheme into a kind of assassins potpourri. If Jones and others seriously think that a trained and professional squad of killers would use this kind of cumbersome equipment, they clearly have no idea of what an assassination entails, nor could they have read the transcript of a certain Joseph Milteer. Also Alex, how could one pin such an attempt on any patsy?

Furthermore, there is not a shred of credible evidence that there were assassination teams dotted all the way through the motorcade. If there were, why then did they wait until Dealey Plaza? Did Jones realize that his ludicrous scenario resembles something from a Warner Brothers’ cartoon? Has he ever realized that one of his more frequent guests, Colonel Craig Roberts, thought of Dealey Plaza, in particular the knoll, as a good ambush spot. In fact, it could not have gotten any better. You had a car slowed down to about 10 MPH. You had high buildings behind the target so an assassin could get a good elevated shot off. You had a picket fence in front of the target at an elevation also. Then you had parking lots in between for a getaway. With a set-up like that, why on earth would anyone need to call in an assault with bazookas and hand grenades? Do Jones and Bermas even study covert and clandestine operations? And what the words “clandestine” and “covert” mean?

If they had to, they were going to have military kill ’em and go to full martial law. They had riot troops in the air from the army flying above Dallas.

There is no documented evidence that has come out either before or after the assassination that the US was going to “go to full martial law.” This is another of Jones’ Orwellian fantasies. But it gets worse. Jones flagrantly steals from JFK the film and then gets it totally wrong. Donald Sutherland (not “Peter” as Jones called him in the Marrs interview), who played the X/Fletcher Prouty character, actually said this about the aircraft:

We had a third of a combat division returning from Germany in the air above the United States at the time of the shooting. The troops were in the air for possible riot control. (Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film, p. 110.)

While there was a combat division returning from Germany at the time, it was part of a long-term process of repatriation. But it is crucial that in no way, shape, or form did “X” say anything about them flying above Dallas. Furthermore, does Jones really think that one third of a combat division would be enough to enforce martial law upon the United States? This would be, at the most, 5,000 troops!