Me and Lee: How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald

(2010 Trine Day, LLC) by Judyth Vary Baker
http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/12/19/me-and-lee-harvey-oswald

Book Review
Stuart Bramhall
Dec 19th, 2011

Part I

This review is divided into two parts. Part I discusses Baker and her background. Part II delves into the personality of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Me and Lee is a memoir by the only surviving member of a top secret New Orleans research team (described by Ed Haslam in Dr Mary’s Monkey – see http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/12/15/the-hidden-manmade-history-of-the-cancer-epidemic/ ) which attempted, in 1963, to create a biologic warfare agent to assassinate Castro. It has a forward by Haslam and an afterward by longtime assassination researcher Jim Marrs. It’s also extensively footnoted and cross referenced with photos, newspaper clippings and other documents from Baker’s personal records, Warren Commission testimony, and other records from the JFK archives.

A science prodigy, Judyth Vary Baker was only 19 when she joined this project. The major strength of Lee and Me is the author’s ability to capture the naive idealism behind Baker’s determination to “conquer” cancer. As much a character study as an expose, the book portrays to perfection the blind, headstrong idealism typical of many young people manipulated into joining off-the-books intelligence-security activities.

Baker’s High School Cancer Research

It was obvious from an early age that Baker had a brilliant mind. Thanks to her extreme precociousness and heavy government emphasis on science education (to “catch up” with the Soviet space program), her high school provided her special premises to convert a science fair project into a long term study of techniques to accelerate cancer growth in mice. Thanks to Florida Senator George Smathers, she came to the attention of national cancer researchers. This led to her recruitment, after one year of college, by the prominent anti-Castro anticommunist Dr Alton Ochsner of Tulane University. Baker’s role was to assist cancer researcher Dr Mary Sherman in a project that was sold to Baker as a an effort to develop a vaccine against SV-40. The latter was a monkey virus which contaminated the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines given to children between 1955 and 1963.

Baker arrives in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 and discovers she will be conducting research in CIA pilot David Ferrie’s apartment, rather Dr Sherman’s lab. Moreover her assignment isn’t to work on a vaccine, but to help create a virus capable of causing “galloping” cancer. Her job consists of harvesting fifty or more mice every week that have been injected with SV-40 viruses mutated by exposure to radiation. She then grinds up the most aggressive tumors, suspends them in calf serum medium and centrifuges them to extract the viruses. She then transports them to Dr Sherman’s lab to be re-exposed to high intensity radiation.

Baker’s Relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald

Baker is introduced to Lee Harvey Oswald during this period because he serves as her escort, riding the bus with her to and from work. In addition to her lab research, Ochsner asks her to take a cover job at the Reily Coffee Company, where her immediate boss is a former FBI agent who is also heavily involved with the anti-Castro movement. Oswald also seems to be instrumental in persuading Baker to overcome her scruples about her biological warfare research, by revealing there is a right-wing/Mob/CIA/anti-Castro Cuban plot to kill JFK that might be derailed if they succeed in removing Castro from power. The line Oswald, Ferrie and Sherman give her that if Castro is assassinated, the different factions will start jockeying for power over Cuba and this will split the coalition.

Baker’s cover at Reily Coffee Company is that of secretary, though her main role is to ensure that Oswald, who also has a cover job at Reilly’s, gets his time card clocked in and out when he’s in the field. Both spend most of their time at their top secret jobs. Baker, who is mainly at Ferrie’s apartment dissecting mice, is never totally clear what Oswald’s assignment is. She describes him as getting regular payments from the FBI and CIA, as well as unemployment checks from a former job in Texas. He seems to be a kind of errand boy, both for the CIA and the Mafia. Oswald has relatives with the Mob and introduces Baker to New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. The Mafia has lost lucrative Cuban casinos in the revolution and is an eager participant in various conspiracies to get rid of Castro. Oswald also introduces her to Jacob “Sparky” Rubenstein (also known as Jack Ruby), who Oswald has known from childhood.

Part II

I have been reading JFK assassination literature since 1990. Of all the books I have read, Lee and Me provides the most insight into Oswald’s personality and his knowledge of the assassination conspiracy. As Baker portrays him, he comes across as an immature, bookish geek who liked to check out James Bond spy thrillers and quote from obscure literary works. He admitted to Baker that he was ashamed of hitting his wife Marina (for insulting his manhood) but seemed unable to stop. He also had strong personal views about civil rights and routinely sat in the rear colored section of buses. In 1963, the South was still militantly segregated. I can see how this might have been extremely irritating to his right wing, racist superiors.

Oswald’s CIA Role in New Orleans

According to Baker, he was very much aware that his CIA handlers didn’t trust him following his return from the Soviet Union. He told Baker that fake defectors were never fully trusted, owing to the possibility they might have became double agents. Oswald was never given the name of the CIA officer running the anti-Castro project he was working for. Oswald only knew him as Mr. B and that he was CIA station chief in Mexico. According to Oswald, this pattern of being assigned a number of minor, unrelated tasks without being clear who he was working for was typical for agents suspected of being “dangles” (double agents). Baker states he only learned his superior’s real name a few days before the assassination. In their last phone conversation, Oswald revealed the man’s name was David Atlee Phillips. In 1963 Phillips was CIA Chief of Cuban Operations. In 1954 he played a major role in the CIA coup against Arbenz in Guatemala.

Baker mentions that Oswald helped to organize a shipment of weapons smuggled into New Orleans for the anti-Castro Cubans the CIA was training as paramilitaries. She also talks about an assignment in which Oswald posed as a pro-Castro member of Fair Trade for Cuba to collect names of Castro sympathizers to turn over to the FBI. He was also identified as the agent who would smuggle the fatal viruses into Cuba. This meant that Baker had to train him to change the culture medium necessary to keep them alive.

Baker is Fired from the Project

Eventually Sherman, Ferrie and Baker succeed in isolating a tumor virus capable of producing “galloping” cancer (killing them in weeks, rather than months) in mice. They then inject it into marmoset, rhesus and African green monkeys, where it proves to be equally virulent. In August 1963, Clay Shaw (the CIA contractor district attorney Jim Garrison prosecuted in 1967 for his involvement in the JFK assassination), Oswald and Ferrie transport the virus to the East Louisiana State Mental Hospital, to inject it into a “volunteer” from the Angola Penitentiary. Baker is initially told the patient already suffers from terminal cancer. She subsequently learns that he’s perfectly healthy. It also becomes clear from the blood samples she’s asked to analyze for cancer cells that numerous volunteers have been injected with the lethal virus.

Baker writes an angry memo informing Ochsner that this type of experimentation on human subjects is unethical. He immediately terminates her from the project and threatens her life if she has any further contact with Oswald. By this point the two of them have become lovers. Although Baker returns to Florida with her husband, she and Oswald make plans to leave their respective spouses and elope to Mexico after Oswald smuggles the fatal virus into Cuba.

Oswald Realizes He is Being Set Up

Oswald, meanwhile learns that his assignment is changed, that he is only to transport the virus to Mexico City and hand it off to a second courier. When his contact fails to show in Mexico City, he makes a desperate attempt to get a Cuban visa to deliver the virus himself, which is denied. He is now genuinely concerned about his own safety. The information he possesses makes him a clear liability to the people he works for unless they have a specific use for him. He becomes convinced, at this point, that they are trying to set him up to look like a pro-Castro agent in the plot against JFK.

Despite the promise he has been given to be transferred to Mexico City, his superiors order him to return to Dallas to spy on “right wing nuts” interested in killing Kennedy. He and Baker continue to maintain phone contact, using pay phones and a complex phone wheel they use to synchronize call scheduling. On October 19th, Oswald is invited to join the assassination conspiracy – planned for three alternative locations – Miami (a right-wing informant blows the whistle on the Miami plot and Kennedy forgoes a motorcade to be transported by helicopter), Chicago and Dallas. Oswald plays along, believing he can pass details of the conspiracy to trusted FBI agents who can foil the assassination attempts.

Following the records release under the 1992 JFK Act, it was learned that a tip-off regarding an assassination threat caused the secret service to cancel JFK’s November 2nd visit to Chicago. Oswald told Baker back in 1963 that he was responsible for this tip off. On November 16, he told her that he also passed information regarding the Dallas assassination plot to an FBI contact. Oswald’s wife Marina later confirmed this in a letter to the Chairman of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board. According to an FBI clerk Garrison interviewed during his investigation, the FBI contact telexed the information to the Dallas FBI field office, where it mysteriously vanished.

*To protect her five children, Baker kept silent about her involvement with Oswald until her last child left home in 1998, she broke her silence. Her revelations on the Internet provoked a firestorm of controversy, both from pro-conspiracy researchers and Warren Commission diehards, who accuse her of fabricating her story from the wealth of detail on the JFK assassination circulating on the Internet.

Edward Haslam, author of Dr Mary’s Monkey (see link), has exhaustively investigated her story and defends her for the following reasons:

He has confirmed her identity and her claims about doing cancer research in high school through the microfilm file at the Bradenton Herald, while employed there managing their market research.

He has sighted the W2 slip she provides for her period of employment at the Reily Coffee Company and confirms that it’s genuine.

He has personally interviewed Anna Lewis, wife of CIA agent David Lewis, who worked with Oswald, Jack Martin and Guy Bannister in New Orleans’ anti-Castro movement. She confirms that Baker and Oswald were romantically involved in 1963.
Baker blogs, with long time assassination researcher Jim Fetzer, at:

http://judythbaker.blogspot.com/

Me & Lee

http://www.meandlee.com/

Judyth Vary Baker was once a promising science student who dreamed of finding a cure for cancer, but strayed from a path of mainstream scholarship at the University of Florida to a life of espionage in New Orleans with Lee Harvey Oswald.

In her memoir, Me & Lee – How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald, Judyth offers extensive documentation of how she came to be involved with cancer research at such a young age, the personalities who recruited her to move to New Orleans in 1963, how she was hired there – along with Lee Oswald – by Reily Coffee Co. and fired the same afternoon Lee was arrested for disturbing the peace on Canal Street, and how she became a participant in the development of a biological weapon that Oswald was to smuggle into Cuba to eliminate Fidel Castro.

Judyth shows the evidence and relates – from her first-hand experience – all she knows about the Kennedy assassination, her love affair with Lee Oswald over the summer of '63, her conversations with him as late as two days before JFK's death, his role as a deep-cover intelligence agent who was framed for an assassination he was actually trying to prevent, and how he was silenced by his old friend Jack Ruby.

From the flaps of Me & Lee cover dustjacket:

"If you want to stay alive, it's time to go into the catacombs. Promise me you will keep your mouth shut!"

Judyth Vary Baker was only twenty years old when she heard those alarming words. It was the strained voice of David Ferrie.

The date was November 23, 1963, the day after President Kennedy had been fatally shot in Dallas. Her co-worker, friend and lover, Lee Oswald, had been declared the "lone-nut" assassin.

Judyth knew this wasn't true, but what could she do? She was now living in Florida with her new husband, Robert Baker III, having left New Orleans in September of 1963 when Lee moved to Dallas after their summer-long affair.

Then came November 24th. Lee was shot — live on television — right before her eyes. Devastated, depressed and scared,

Judyth was told to lay low, to be a "vanilla girl," to trade her silence for her life. She knew things, secret things.

Judyth made a decision. She dropped her childhood dreams of finding a cure for cancer along with her first love: science.

Choosing survival, she soon buried herself in her family (raising five kids), her work and art. She resolved that, one day, she would tell her story. She would speak the truth so Lee's children, whom he adored, would know what their father really did and what he really stood for.

As a high school student, Judyth had independently discovered a method of accelerating cancer growth in lab mice, and came to the attention of top-echelon doctors and medical researchers, including renowned surgeon Dr. Alton Ochsner, a past president of the American Cancer Society and founder of the world-famous Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.

After her sophomore year of college in Florida, Judyth landed a summer job in New Orleans with prominent cancer researcher Dr. Mary Sherman, a physician working with Dr. Ochsner.

Within days of her arrival, a man named Lee Oswald just happened to be standing in line behind her at the post office. This seemingly chance encounter began a relationship which drew her through the looking glass into a maelstrom, changing her life forever.

She soon found that, instead of working to find a cure for cancer, she was actually helping to create a super-cancer virus for the purpose of killing Fidel Castro. But there was an even more sinister side.

Over the next few months Judyth met several infamous figures surrounding Oswald: the fanatical ex-FBI right-wing racist Guy Banister, Mafia Godfather Carlos Marcello, club-owner Jack Ruby, and many others. She also became a friend and workmate of the brilliant but bizarre David Ferrie.

Unlike any other book about the events of that fateful year, "Me & Lee" is a deeply personal memoir relating the author's firsthand experience in New Orleans as lover and confidante of Lee Harvey Oswald.

KT on Roswell Document

PARAPOLITCIS OFFHAND
Feature at SteamshovelPress.com
Kenn Thomas

4/10/11: Researchers trying to Roswell-cubbyhole a well-known 7/15/47 note by J. Edgar Hoover now see its infamous "La." abbreviation as possibly being "Sw"--as in "Southwest", like around Roswell where the flying saucer crashed. Steamshovel agrees that the damned abbreviation could be anything, especially in a time before the standardization of such abbreviations.

The memo goes on that "the army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination." Well, J. Edgar, it's kinda diffcult to just pass over a big ol' space ship like that for cursory examination. Perhaps he refers to the 30 inch saucer handed over to Guy Banister three days prior to Hoover's note. Banister was the FBI special agent in charge of the Pacific northwest at the time-later famous for his association with Lee Harvey Oswald down in Louisiana ("La."!)--who reported that the army took the small saucer. This happened in Twin Falls, Idaho, was urned over in Butte, Montana, and got reported in the Tacoma and Seattle papers, and who knows how J. Edgar might have abbreviated any of those? Read all about it in JFK & UFO!

After Wall Street II Oliver Stone should do JFK II

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/10/28/after-wall-street-ii-oliver-stone-should

After Wall Street II Oliver Stone should do JFK II
The last key witness has finally been found
October 28th, 2010
Roland Michel Tremblay

The last key witness that Oliver Stone mentioned in the film "JFK" (1991), the one who could have solved and proved the conspiracy surrounding JFK's assassination, has finally been found. Her name is Judyth Vary Baker and her 606 page testimony titled "Me & Lee, How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald" has just been published at Trine Day Press. Jim Marrs, the long-time investigator and author of the New York Times bestseller "Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy", upon which the "JFK" film was based, asked in the afterword of Baker's book how she can still be alive today. Good question.

It has not been easy. Baker decided to talk after 36 years of frightened silence, but after being confronted with death threats she had to leave the United States. She returned to the US twice, only to flee overseas due to ongoing stalking, harassment and several hospitalizations caused by what Marrs termed "freak accidents." In 2007 she was accepted as a political asylum seeker in Europe, the first ever non-combatant American woman to succeed in gaining asylum seeker status in the world. She is still struggling with character assassination over the Internet by people intent on destroying her as a credible witness, but her book is out now, and it changes everything. So much so that Oliver Stone could finally do a final and less static version of his film. Instead of telling us about what might have happened, he could now show us what really happened in 1963 in New Orleans and Dallas.

What happened is far more impressive and sinister than anyone could have imagined. Beyond the facts that the death of JFK opened the way to more wars, such as in Vietnam, ostensibly to fight communism while enriching the war industry, with the Mafia free of Bobby Kennedy's pesky presence countering corruption, we now know there is now a whole new angle to the story. And it is perhaps more important and worrying than even the assassination of a beloved President. Behind it all was the development of a biological weapon capable of killing anyone by injecting virulent cancer cells. Any such murder would, of course, look like a natural death.

This is what Lee Harvey Oswald, a US government agent, was working on with Judyth Vary Baker in the summer of 1963 in New Orleans, along with David Ferrie, Dr. Mary Sherman, and Dr. Alton Ochsner from the Ochsner Clinic, with the government and the Mafia waiting in the wings. That fact alone warranted that many witnesses had to be eliminated. If you check carefully, two of these witnesses died of a powerful cancer that spread quickly, without detection, that death ensued soon after its diagnosis -- the assassin of Oswald, Jack Ruby, who claimed to have been injected with cancer cells, and Clay Shaw, the central figure in the Garrison trial in Stone's movie, "JFK", who died in Ochsner's Clinic and was buried within 24 hours. Part of the whole story had been previously published in another significant book -- "Dr. Mary's Monkey" -- written by Edward T. Haslam. "Dr. Mary's Monkey" has become an underground bestseller. Haslam, the son of a prominent New Orleans doctor, wrote the foreword to Baker's book.

The extraordinary story of Judyth Vary Baker certainly came as a surprise to all main investigators, who had never heard of her before, although there are actually many oblique references to her in the extant body of evidence, as well as living witnesses who have verified that she was Oswald's close companion and lover in the months before the JFK assassination. Some still insist she made it all up, while others have concocted see-through lies to discredit her, preferring to protect their own theories and book sales. Strikingly, after nearly 50 years, new evidence and witnesses such as Baker are still being largely ignored in favor of well-financed TV specials and YouTube presentations. Foremost in these efforts is Vincent Bugliosi, who received a million dollars for his book, "Reclaiming History", which supports the Warren Commission's findings, and Gerald Posner (recently indicted for blatant plagiarism). Close at their heels is Gary Mack, whose robust six-figure salary at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas depends on defending the so-called "sniper's nest" theory despite overwhelming new evidence that Kennedy was assassinated by a bullet from the Grassy Knoll. To this day, witnesses such as Baker are still not safe or free to talk, just like most significant classified information about the matter has still been kept from the public.

"How many authors do not dare have book signings?" Baker asked. "For my own safety, I'm unable to do so." Baker has turned down countless requests for interviews: in the past seven years since the History Channel presented Baker's story in a documentary ("The Love Affair"), only Dr. James Fetzer has managed to get an interview with her. Now that Baker's book has been published, it will become evident to all that no one could possibly make this up, especially when it answers and brings together all the pieces of a puzzle that so many have tried, unsuccessfully, to solve over the years. Those who read the book will also understand why so many witnesses died mysteriously, one by one, following the double assassination of JFK and Oswald, and why the various official investigations conducted were charged to convince the public that a demented lone nut -- Lee Harvey Oswald -- was Kennedy's assassin. If Jim Marrs, Edward T. Haslam, Fetzer and the producers of "The Love Affair" were convinced that Judyth Vary Baker was telling the truth, it was because she has told her story with striking candor, with a large amount of evidence supporting her testimony.

Judyth Vary Baker had only one wish when she was a young and promising lab researcher hired by Dr. Ochsner -- to discover a cure for cancer -- and everyone believed then that she could do it. She and her fellow research associates were led to believe that the New Orleans Project -- developing a biological weapon designed to assassinate Fidel Castro -- could have prevented the death of JFK and World War Three. Then, after Kennedy was killed, she was told to keep her mouth shut and to never again work in cancer research. But the little girl from Bradenton Florida still has up-to-date knowledge of the research being done today. "I still believe I could cure certain kinds of soft tissue cancers inexpensively," she says, "within five years, using modified bacteriophages." Bacteriophages are simple viruses that literally 'eat' bacteria, Baker explained, but they could be "genetically altered" to seek out certain cancers and literally eat them alive. "Bacteriophage therapy could also be applied to fight bacterial diseases such as tuberculosis," she said. "Resistance to antibiotics is becoming a problem that bacteriophage research could very possibly solve."

But Baker fears that as long as so much cancer research is financed by private pharmaceutical companies, that expensive chemotherapy will continue to be the center of research efforts, since bacteriophage therapy would be much cheaper and therefore less profitable. "We could have cured cancer decades ago," Baker insists. Because of the "profit factor," Baker believes that "if we ever develop an inexpensive cure for cancer, it will be due to independent research at universities, or in government-funded labs. An inexpensive treatment, such as one involving the direct use of bacteriophage, will not come from Big Pharma."

Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald by Judyth Vary Baker (http://www.judythvarybaker.com/) and Dr. Mary's Monkey by Edward T. Haslam (http://www.doctormarysmonkey.com/) and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs, offer the big picture --and finally link together -- all the major players in the conspiracy surrounding JFK's assassination. It is time for us to appreciate what transpired then and draw parallels as to what is happening today. Oliver Stone should produce "JFK II" so we can be aware and move on to real and tangible change and a durable peace. Such was, after all, the main dream of John F. Kennedy.

Portrait of a patsy

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2010/05/portrait-of-patsy.html

Thursday, May 06, 2010
Portrait of a patsy
Xymphora

It would be ridiculously easy to set up Faisal Shahzad. New American, a little on the make, with family in Pakistan and big financial problems. Friendly government agent approaches him and appeals to his patriotism and love of adventure, plus offers to pay well (note the history). First mission: infiltrate a 'terrorist' training camp in Pakistan (little does Shahzad know that the camp is really run by the CIA). Second mission: buy a cheap used car on Craigslist. Third mission: buy some fireworks. Fourth mission: stay at home awaiting further instructions. Shahzad, seeing his car on TV, suddenly got that Lee Harvey Oswald feeling, and decided it might be better to get out of the country before he died in a shoot-out.

Despite a gazillion cameras and CCTVs in Times Square, there is not the slightest evidence that Shahzad was actually there with the car. Complete absence of forensics in the car points to a government job. Strangely enough, so does the utter incompetence of the bomb - even without any training, Shahzad could have done better - and the fact that the bomb was modelled after the incompetent car bomb at Edinburgh (which Shahzad couldn't have known to copy - we're supposed to believe it came out of training at the same incompetent bomb-making school in Pakistan!).

They say he's talking, but who knows. They have him in a tough spot, liable to be labeled an 'enemy combatant' with the loss of all rights, and friendly authorities in Pakistan have his family in custody for further blackmail. Patsies always find themselves in a position where there is no way out.

I suspect the 'no fly list' problem is phony, intended by American authorities as a way of forcing recalcitrant airlines to get in line. The entire story of his capture is hinky, from the alleged fact that the FBI somehow 'lost' him, to the entire buried story of American Army involvement (whatever happened to posse comitatus?). Gawker investigated the changed story, and the attempt at an innocent excuse is ridiculous (and note the drone reference at the end of the Gawker article: drone blowback against the American people is particularly ironic given illegal American drone killings in Pakistan).

Vintage Ventura on Display in New Book

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Jan05/0,4670,VenturaBook,00.html

Vintage Ventura on Display in New Book
Saturday, January 05, 2008
By PATRICK CONDON, Associated Press Writer

MINNEAPOLIS — Former Gov. Jesse Ventura may prefer Mexico to Minnesota these days, but his ex-constituents will still recognize his style if they pick up his upcoming book, "Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!"

Ventura uses the book _ part personal memoir, part political rant _ to rail against organized religion and the media, detail his brushes with celebrities and suggest that he should be viewed as a possible presidential candidate.

"Is it worth it to put my family and me out there, to take on a force that most of the American people are willing to go along with?" Ventura writes in the book, due in stores in April. "The government is supposed to be us, and it's not us anymore. It's been hijacked. Just when is somebody going to do something?"

The former pro wrestler hasn't reined in the outrageous opinions that often got him in trouble when he was governor from 1999 to 2003. The book is constructed as a loose travelogue of his and wife Terry's drive from Minnesota to Baja California, Mexico, where they now spend much of their time, but it leaves plenty of room for Ventura to digress into his obsessions.

He discusses at length the assassination of President Kennedy. He scorns the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and claims that during a trip to Dallas as governor a police officer warned him to avoid talking too much about "things that certain people don't want brought to light."

Ventura also airs his suspicion that "somebody in the government" sent people to infiltrate a government course he taught at Harvard University in 2004, on a day he discussed Kennedy's assassination. He repeatedly shows a fascination with conspiracy theories and surveillance, recalling several encounters he had with CIA agents while governor and claiming that his wife found an electronic listening device at their private home during his term.

He also discusses what he sees as the folly of organized religion. He argues that Catholic Church leaders should face racketeering charges for covering up sexual abuse by priests, then writes: "If Jesus came back today, I think he'd throw up."

Ventura recounts meeting Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, with whom he spent time during a trade mission and found to be engaging and perceptive. He says he asked Castro about Kennedy's assassination and that the Cuban leader denied involvement but also believed Oswald did not act alone.

A harsh critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Ventura says his doubts "have grown steadily" about the backstory to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"I think that bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for September 11th," Ventura writes. "But I also think it wasn't without some knowledge from our side."

Still, for someone who scorns all sides of the political debate, Ventura speculates on how his presidential bid would unfold. He ends the book with a series of fictional newspaper articles describing an insurgent 2008 campaign, with environmental activist Robert Kennedy Jr. as his running mate.

While the scenario starts off lighthearted _ Ventura kicks off his candidacy at a Wrestlemania event _ it takes a macabre turn in the end when he is shot by a Cuban exile upset over his opposition to the U.S. economic boycott against Cuba.

"While independent presidential candidate Jesse Ventura _ in a coma for the fourth consecutive day _ clung to life with family members gathered at his bedside, a White House press spokesman denied mounting allegations that accused assassin Raul Santana was part of a wider plot," one entry reads.

Bruce Willis Says JFK Killers Still In Power

Bruce Willis Says JFK Killers Still In Power
Actor tells Vanity Fair he's skeptical of lone shooter theory
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, May 7, 2007
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2007/070507brucewillis.htm

In a new magazine interview, Bruce Willis spills the beans on his skepticism that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of JFK, and suggests that the some of the same criminals who killed Kennedy are still in power today.

"They still haven't caught the guy that killed [President] Kennedy," Willis told Vanity Fair's June issue, according to the New York Post.

"I'll get killed for saying this, but I'm pretty sure those guys are still in power, in some form. The entire government of the United States was co-opted," adds the Die Hard star.

So from where did Willis, a former die-hard champion of Neo-Con policy, receive his sudden wake-up call?

As we reported last year, Hollywood director Richard Linklater said he had handed out 9/11 truth DVDs on the set of Fast Food Nation, including Alex Jones' Terror Storm and Martial Law documentaries, and that they completely changed Willis' political paradigm.

"He said it put him in such a head space that he will be quiet on issues of national policy," Linklater told the Alex Jones Show.

Is Willis' comment that the people who killed Kennedy are still in power a reference to the fact that George H.W. Bush was photographed at the scene in Dealy Plaza?

Either way, it's refreshing to see that Willis, who was vehemently pro-war and pro-Bush in the months after 9/11, has seen the light and realized that patriotism is about love of one's country, not worship of government.