Belzer Richard - Hit List: an In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination

Hit

List

An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination

Richard Belzer and David Wayne

Copyright 2013 by Richard Belzer and David Wayne

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Belzer, Richard.

Hit list : an in-depth investigation into the mysterious deaths of witnesses to the JFK assassination / Richard Belzer and David Wayne.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-62087-807-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963--Assassination. 2. Witnesses--Death--United States. 3. Witnesses--Texas--Dallas--Biography. I. Wayne, David, 1963- II. Title.

E842.9.B444 2013

973.922092--dc23

2013001767

Printed in the United States of America

History will not absolve us if we do not, once and for all,
reveal all that is known about the greatest, most tragic murder mystery
in American History. After all, 90 percent of the American people believe
that there was a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy. The other 10 percent
work for the government or the media. This book is dedicated to
the 90 percent: May you forever question, hold accountable, and improve,
the great gift from our forebears; what historians have called our
Experiment in Democracy. Let us all join in this quest to
preserve the very soul of our nation.

Anybody can commit a murder, but it takes an expert to commit a suicide.

Legendary CIA asset, Bill Corson, who held a uniquely close position to the highest and darkest echelons of the Central Intelligence Agency.

People are eliminated. Honey, you dont know how many people are just eliminated, just on the operating table alone. They just need to be disposed of. And dont ever believe what you read in the papers. Its all made up.

Joe Shimon, a professional assassin and deep cover operative who, for decades, did the dirty work for the permanent Government of U.S. military and intelligenceand who finally divulged the above facts to his daughter, late in his life.

Someday you will read that I have been killed in an accident, but dont believe it, Ive been murdered.

William Sullivan, high-ranking member of FBI, head of Division 5, Counterespionage and Domestic Intelligence, who was officially killed in a hunting accident shortly thereafter.

All I know is that witnesses with vital evidence in the case are bad insurance risks.

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, when asked about all the deaths of witnesses who had been sought for testimony.

Peter Janney, Marys Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision For World Peace (Skyhorse Publishing: 2012), 267.

Janney, Marys Mosaic (Shimon interview, February 15, 2007), 384.

John Hawkins, Right Wing News, 20 Aug 2007. Robert D. Novak, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (Crown Forum: 2007).

In the three-year period which followed the murder of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, 18 material witnesses died: six by gunfire, three in motor accidents, two by suicide, one from a cut throat, one from a karate chop to the neck, three from heart attacks and two from natural causes. An actuary engaged by the London Times calculated the probability that at least 18 witnesses would die of any cause within 3 years of the JFK assassination as1 in 100,000 trillion.

Thus began the promotion of the 1973 film Executive Action, and a controversy that became legendary.

Its important to note that, during the exact same time period that this plethora of suspicious deaths occurred, President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover were in the process of slamming the door on any and all evidence that implied a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. As historian Walt Brown grimly notes:

Johnsons actions were a virtual guarantee that the truth would be buried and furthermore, the assassination would not have been carried out if those behind it did not have the full acquiescence of the incoming President and the FBI Director.

They controlled everything once the shots ended.

They controlled everything but they did nothing.

For those unfamiliar with the historical context, the chain of events was extremely unnerving:

First, President Kennedy was gunned down in broad daylight on a Dallas street during a parade;

Minutes later, in a somehow related crime, Dallas Officer J. D. Tippit was murdered on the street in a hail of bullets in a different section of town;

Two days later, the accused assassin of President Kennedy was murdered while in Dallas police custody, with the event being captured on national television;

Then, a seemingly endless list of witnesses started dying, many from obviously unnatural causes.

Body Count

Author Kent Heiner did an excellent job of detailing the alarming rise in the convenient deaths of JFK witnesses:

The weekend of November 22, 1963, was a bloody one. But these three deathsKennedy, Tippit, and Oswaldwere only the beginning. There would be dozens of suspicious deaths to follow over the years.

Dorothy Kilgallen, the nationally-famous reporter who interviewed Jack Ruby in prison, died of unexplained causes after hinting at an explosive breakthrough in the Kennedy story.

A panicked intelligence professional named Gary Underhill reportedly came to a friends home in fear of his life on the night after the assassination, raving about the (CIA) Agencys Southeast Asian drug traffickers having killed the President, and committed suicide days later.

A railroad worker who saw a shooter on the grassy knoll died in an automobile accident.

Strippers employed by Ruby had reported having seen him with Oswald before the assassination; they too were soon dead.

Sheriffs deputies who talked too much about what they saw were killed on duty or driven to suicide.

A witness who saw men other than Oswald fleeing the TSBD (Texas School Book Depository building) after the shooting received several telephoned threats and survived multiple attempts on his life.

And, of course, there is the Pitzer case. Lieutenant Commander Pitzer was at the Kennedy autopsy and then was killed under very suspicious circumstances.