Vincent Salandria Interview by David Starks 1994 Previously unpublished. Copyright (C) 1994 David Starks; reproduced with permission. Originally published in rat haus reality press, May 29, 2017. Complete MP3 recording (1:17:25, 74.3 MB) This 1994 interview was conducted by David Starks in Vincent Salandria's home in Philadelphia. David Starks: [Missing beginning...] studying the JFK assassination. Vincent Salandria: On the weekend of the assassination, I discussed this with my then-brother-in-law, Harold Feldman who wrote on this matter, and since has died. And we talked about Oswald, the alleged assassin. And we said that one had to maintain an open mind on the issue of whether or not he was the assassin and whether or not there was a conspiracy. But that open mind would have to close if during the course of the weekend Oswald was killed. When Oswald was killed both of us decided that this was a matter which could not be entrusted to the government. That the investigation of it would have to be undertaken by private individuals and that perhaps we would, on this matter, have to do work ourselves. David Starks: What do you consider your specialization or focus of the research or the work that you've done over the years? -- These may seem like obvious questions but.... Vincent Salandria: I initially investigated this matter in 1964 in cooperation with Mark Lane. Harold and I went to Dallas. IMAGE Vincent Salandria and brother-in-law Harold Feldman traveled to Dallas in the summer of 1964 to investigate the assassination of the President. Mr. Salandria took this photograph of Mr. Feldman, his wife Immie (center), and Oswald's mother Marguerite (right). We met with, and I remained with, for four days, Marguerite Oswald, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald. We investigated the Tenth Street patent killing of Tippit. We came across Acquilla Clemons through the intervention of Marguerite Oswald. Acquilla Clemons was a woman who lived across the street from the killing and saw two men on opposites sides of the street conversing with one another, calling to one another, and one of them going to the Tippit car and killing Officer Tippet. We questioned Helen Markham and her husband. I must say that before we got to her that we saw a Dallas Police Car pulling away. When we spoke to those people, I have never seen that kind of terror. Their teeth were actually chattering. I only could get a little from them because of their terror. When we began, I began as, really, an investigator. I collected newspaper articles which seemed to point in the direction of Oswald being a US intelligence operative. An agente provocateur. When we put these together Harold wrote an article for The Nation which was called "Oswald and the FBI." That's what we were doing initially. Then The Warren Report came out and I read it. I remember calling Harold after I read it and said, "It seems clear to me, the report is totally convincing. It had to be, the assassination, [at] the very core of the American government, the highest level of power. Because the report reveals quite clearly an assassination by conspiracy. And then comes out with a conclusion that one man did it and did it alone. This contradiction, of the conclusion against the evidence, is a manifestation of great arrogance and great power. Only the center of the American power structure could have effectuated this and expected that the American press would play along with it." And whereupon I went with my report, the Warren Commission Report, to a meeting of the Philadelphia Bar Association, immediately after the report came out. The meeting was designed to pay an accolade to a staffer of the Warren Commission who was of tremendous significance in solving the ammunition shortage which the Commission was confronted with having only three bullets with which to perform all the wounds and hits of Dealey Plaza. And that was, of course, Arlen Specter. He made a presentation to the Bar Association members who were assembled there and then opened himself up to questioning. I directed some questions to him and he was unable to answer them. When the meeting was over, my colleagues at the Bar -- some of them -- gathered around and said `Look, write an article on this.' So I went home and that night, while dealing with other clients, I wrote the first analysis of the shots, trajectories, and wounds of the Warren Commission, sent it to the then-Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar, Theodore Voorhees, and said `The Bar Association has paid honor to Mr. Specter. I think that there are problems in the analysis of the assassination as set forth in the Warren Commission Report. Do you have the courage to put a dissenting view in a law journal?' His answer was, he put it -- that article, "The Warren Report - Analysis of Shots, Trajectories, and Wounds: A Lawyer's Dissenting View" -- in the oldest legal journal in the United States, The Legal Intelligencer, that analyzed the shots, trajectories, and wounds, and concluded with the idea that the Warren Commission Report was totally convincing and everybody should believe what it provided in evidence. And what it provided in its evidence was conclusive evidence that there was a major conspiracy in the killing of the President. It was the first attack of the single bullet theory -- the first analysis I know printed anywhere in the world -- and I must say that I should get no credit for that, whatever. I did it while dealing with clients, in between clients, and answering phones. I did it that night. I don't think it took three hours of work. It just rushed out at me from the Warren Commission Report. It's almost as if the government wanted us to know that this was an act of great power and that evidence be damned. It didn't matter. That it was not the evidence that mattered, but the affairs of state that mattered. It was not the people that mattered, but it was the government, and its legitimacy -- or illegitimacy -- that mattered. That's what the Warren Commission Report cried out to me. And I'm a man of limited intelligence, limited ability -- never fired a rifle in my life -- and was able to see what they were telling us if we wanted to know. If we wanted to know. But once you know -- that as you know Dave -- then you become committed to the idea of doing something about this. The job for the American media was, to make this look so complex, so prolix, so difficult to comprehend, so subject to debate, that the public would weary of trying to know. When in fact, the public did believe, always did believe that there was a conspiracy. And the public was permitted to believe, but it was not permitted to know the obvious. That it had a gangster government, led by the military-industrial complex under the control of the intelligence system which would manipulate us internally and seek to provide hegemony over the whole world in terms of American military power. We would become more militarized. We would become more aggressive, more imperial. And at home we would become just a facade of a democratic structure. Manipulated by the covert, black bag aspects of our governmental structure. [A digression about dogs ensues.] David Starks: I'm not looking for five-second sound bites but I know that we could go on for an hour on each one of these questions. But we want to try to keep them a little shorter if we can. And I feel uncomfortable saying that. Vincent Salandria: No, no, please say it. Don't hesitate to say whatever you have to say. David Starks: Okay. Now you answered my second and third questions in one shot and I assume that your initial challenge to the single bullet theory would probably be what you would consider your most significant accomplishment in the case. Vincent Salandria: No. David Starks: No? Vincent Salandria: Well, okay, I would say, No. David Starks: Then the next question is what do you consider your most significant accomplishment? Vincent Salandria: I think my most significant accomplishment, Dave, is understanding that what I did, in terms of being the first one to attack the single bullet theory, was not important in understanding that, the government really probably wanted us to involve ourselves in the minutiae of the evidence. To take an endless microanalytic look at the evidence and to delve into that and to fetishize it and not to get out of it and to look above it and to take a macroanalytic look at the evidence and ascertain what it means. What it meant. What the motivation was. Why the assassination was in fact perpetrated, and how it was going to operate in the society -- the people who did it -- how they were going to exercise their power and how they were going to change direction of the society. So what I think the most significant thing I did was to pull myself out of this microanalysis and to try to explain why it happened. To give a model of explanation. That, I think, is the important thing that I did. I departed from the rest of the critics, took myself away from them and said, Look, let's try to make some sense out of this. Let's try to say what it was behind the assassination and how the assassins are operating, if they are, to affect our society. That is I think -- I did that very early and I think that was an important move. David Starks: It's interesting. A lot of the critics now -- the ones that I feel are the most responsible critics -- make that point: Let's not get lost in the maze of Dealey Plaza. Let's get beyond Dealey Plaza. And I agree with you, that's very significant. Why is this case still so important three decades later? Vincent Salandria: I think it's most relevant to our society. I think that what happened in Dealey Plaza was that a duly elected President was fired. That the constitutional process was relegated to a paper-thin facade. That what was left at that time, to American democracy, was relegated to theatrics; to the theatre of the absurd. And that what is happening now is a continuation of what was set forth then and that is, that we became more a militarized society. Under the guise of Cold War we were told that the increase of governmental expenditures to the military sector of the economy was necessary. So we began to spend on the order of 300 billion dollars of national wealth per year on the military industrial complex which caused us to neglect the private sector, neglect education, neglect health service delivery to the poor, neglect increasing poverty, neglect the homeless. Neglect, in short, an effort to make the society fair, and to make the wealth of the country more equally and equitably distributed so that we'd have a state which we could be proud of, where the needs of our people would be met. Whether it be upward social mobility, which I enjoyed, and the future of the society could enjoy. Instead, we became militarized. Instead, rather than being competitive economically and maintaining our competitive edge and being able to maintain the highest standard of living in the world, we have been slipping. And now we have slipped to eleventh or twelfth in our standard of living. The number of poor increases. The injustice of this unequal distribution of wealth escalates. Public education is neglected. The poor are neglected. And we see that although the Cold War has dissipated, the military expenditures remain pretty much flat, hanging close to a 300 billion dollar a year point. We find the President, who I think is a basically decent man, nonetheless coming out for increased expenditures -- in the absence of a cold war -- for "intelligence." That's why it's so significant. The people who seized power, November 22, 1963 at Dealey Plaza, are still in power and are still distorting the quality of the American constitutional structure and are still destroying the quality of life in this society. Destroying our cities -- treating our cities like third world cities. They don't bomb them like they bombed Hanoi or Baghdad. But nonetheless, they look very much like they've been bombed. Look at Philadelphia, which was a city of neighborhoods, beautiful working class neighborhoods, with good housing stock. Go to North Philadelphia. I think that Hanoi at its worse would not compare this favorably to North Philadelphia today. That's why it's so important. David Starks: I've been to North Philadelphia. I went to school at Temple, Main Campus, and a couple of blocks off you're in the wastelands. I see exactly what you mean. Is there is any hope of conclusively solving this case at this late date? Vincent Salandria: I think the case has been solved. It's the question of coming to the realization that it has been solved; that we know -- we know. The government will have you believe anything. That's respect for democracy. You can believe anything. But if you purport to know something, like, This government is illegitimate because it is really controlled by the military industrial intelligence complex, and you act accordingly then the media will deal with you. Then you'll feel the weight of American governmental power. So if you know this, and say you know it, you become an outlaw in terms of being able to communicate with people. But we have to get enough outlaws in that respect to say, We know what happened. We know this government is illegitimate. We know we don't have a democracy and we want our democracy back again. When enough of us say that, then we will get change. But there's no mystery to this assassination. This matter is not debatable except on arranged debates. In a fair debate there's no way, no way to support the proposition that there was no conspiracy in the killing of Kennedy and that conspiracy wasn't at the highest level of government, and that conspiracy didn't affect our government then, and isn't effecting our government, our economy, and our lives, in every material respect today. David Starks: This is a difficult question for some people and you can pass on it if you like. Who do you feel are the researchers or critics who may have contributed the most to our understanding of the case today. In other words who do you feel are some of the more responsible critics who have done good work over the years? I know you don't want to leave anyone out. Vincent Salandria: I would like to talk to that issue. I think that Gaeton Fonzi, who has just written The Last Investigation is perhaps the most responsible of the critics. Certainly the most responsible investigator. What he has done is historically significant. He has demonstrated that the assassination was orchestrated by David Atlee Phillips and David Morales, both of whom were high-placed CIA officials. Not right-wing nuts; David Atlee Phillips was a gentleman in every respect. I'm sure respected by, loved by, loving of Allen Dulles. In the center of power of the CIA, Gaeton has demonstrated to anybody's complete satisfaction -- anybody who reads that book thoroughly will say that he has done his homework, done it well, and proved that the assassination was orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency. That's such historically important work -- he did it himself. He did the work himself, therefore he knows it's correct and anybody who knows Gaeton and knows his passion for truth and his thoroughness and how careful he is, knows that he is right. Now, why is that historically important? All other investigations which any way deviate from that design of the Central Intelligence Agency, having been at the center of the killing of Kennedy, any other investigation or investigative work either consciously or unconsciously is missing the mark. It can be used therefore, as a standard against which all other investigation can be compared. And if the other investigation does not comport with it it can be rejected. So Gaeton Fonzi was of enormous importance. Sylvia Meagher was of enormous importance. Sylvia Meagher prepared an index on the Warren Report, and also on the House Committee, and that work was significant and aided researchers. She (of course) wrote, Accessories After The Fact which was perhaps the best book written in terms of the work and the modus operandi of the Warren Commission, destroying it as a responsible body. Sylvia did monumental work. Garrison, for all his flaws which are so much emphasized by the American press, was a great man. His investigation, if you look at the trial notes, the transcripts, you'll find contributed importantly to the truth. The Clinton aspects of the Clay Shaw trial, where Clay Shaw was seen with Oswald in Clinton, Mississippi David Starks: -- and also Ferrie in the same car Vincent Salandria: -- and Ferrie. The Ferrie aspects of the investigation. The Finck testimony which demonstrates that there was no autopsy. Finck pointed out how Admirals and Generals came in and took over that autopsy -- said they were in charge and forbad the autopsy specialists from tracking the hit in the back -- which Sibert and O'Neill, the FBI agents who were observing it, said -- did not exit [Sibert and O'Neill Report, "Autopsy of Body of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy," 11/26/63, "Gemberling Version"]. That testimony given under oath is of historical significance. But think of what this man Garrison did. Garrison was a public official, enormously respected in New Orleans -- I'm certain, was on his way, to becoming the governor. A much beloved man with a great charisma. He was the only public official in the whole world who understood that the assassination was a very high level conspiracy of intelligence agents who had enormous power -- and he took them on. What courage. What a hero. What a man. How deserving of our admiration. How deserving of the happy role he will play, and enjoy, in history. There are the three people I most respect. David Starks: Would there be any purpose served, or do you think that -- obviously this is idealism, but, if the situation presents itself, should we have another investigation? And, if so, how should it be? Would a special prosecutor be the best way or what do you feel about it? Vincent Salandria: If you're asking me whether the government, the murderers of John F. Kennedy, should conduct another investigation after having given such monumental lies in its first two investigations, heavens no. No more governmental investigation. Should there be further investigation? Sure. We should zero in on the people who did it. Identify them. See them for what they are. Take them on no matter what their power. But that investigation should not be conducted by governmental circles. It should be conducted by private individuals, around the world. Because this affects not only this country, but around the world. Perhaps a million South Vietnamese died as a consequence of what happened in Dealey Plaza. The world, hanging always, between peace and war. And it's the interests of the people who killed Kennedy of maintaining war. To find enemies, to seek them desperately. To manufacture them. To have the American media play them up so that the weapons business can continue and that the greed can continue to be satisfied. IMAGE The Dewey Commission conducted thirteen hearings at the home of Diego Rivera in Coyoacan, April 10-17, 1937, that looked at the claims against Trotsky and his son, Lev Sedov So that our job is to have international scholars from around the world join in the commission, very like, for example, the Dewey Commission which met with distinguished academicians, respected scholars, John Dewey, a very loved and respected philosopher and educator in the United States, heading up the commission, looking in to the issue of the purge trials in the Soviet Union that began after the assassination of Kirov, December 1, 1934. Which resulted in, eventually, the elimination of maybe a million old Bolsheviks. The Dewey commission determined, correctly, that all these confessions, in all these trials, were phony. That the Soviet government was framing these people. And they were cooperating in many respects in the framing, out of their sense of duty to socialism, for the Soviet state. They went along to their deaths, sometimes admitting, confessing to their crimes which were no crimes at all. So we found, literally, a million perhaps of old revolutionaries being killed with no evidence. But manufactured evidence. And the Dewey Commission was able to determine this and announce it to the world. Such a Commission, certainly having no connection with the United States Government -- because the United States Government is the murderer. I would not turn over to the murders the job of determining who the murderers were. That, I think, lacks common sense. But I would turn it over to independent thinkers around the world who are willing to address power. David Starks: After the Stone film there was an outcry for the release of the files. During the election campaign for President, there was a question delivered to Clinton about whether he believed in the conspiracy. He deferred to his Vice Presidential partner, Gore, who stated that he did believe there was one. That leads to the question, should the President become involved? I know he has to appoint members to the review board to force the files out which are still being withheld. Do you think the President should become more actively involved in resolving the controversy for the American people? And can he do that? Vincent Salandria: I think, ideally, he should announce, that we had a coup November 22, 1963. But practicably he cannot do that. I don't think we have had a president with any degree of power of any consequence since the killing of Kennedy. That the Dealey Plaza firing of Kennedy was, and continues, and will continue to be, a message to every president. You're just the president so much, and no more. We, the killers, own the presidency. The Dealey Plaza killing of Kennedy did not only kill a president. It effectively killed the Presidency. Every president who has had to follow Kennedy, even one I can think of with very few brain cells, had to know what happened. Had to know therefore, what could happen, to him if he did not recognize where the power over the Presidency really lay. So I suggest to you that yes, ideally, the President should openly advise the American public and the world that we had a coup but that, as a practicable matter, that is not going to happen. And therefore, it's up to the American people to use this politically. Not to divide up the society. And I suggest to you that the people who killed Kennedy have effectively managed to divide up the family, the country, in a very effective way: rich against poor, class against class, race against race, ethnic group against ethnic group; shattering old coalitions. That people must come together in the knowledge that a more open society will benefit all of us, will improve the quality of life for all of us, will improve the relations in the world for all the peoples of the world. And therefore all of us have a great stake in knowing the truth of that coup and reversing it. And organizing politically. One man, one president, won't be able to do it, Dave. Each of us who come to know the truth must join together, organize politically, and struggle -- maybe a long struggle -- to defeat the power of those rulers who took over the Presidency in Dealey Plaza. No single president can do it for us. We have to do it.... The Bastard Bullet? And I'll give you; excuse me, let give you something, his latest book is really an essay but (I hope I have a copy, yeah) -- it's yours. [Salandria gives Stark a copy of Ray Marcus's The HSCA, The Zapruder Film, and the Single-Bullet Theory (first printing, 1992)] That destroys the single bullet theory, completely destroys it. David Starks: I noticed in some of the research journals, I managed to get all of The Third Decade and all of Paul Hoch's research journals .... Vincent Salandria: Let me say something about Ray Marcus, may I? David Starks: Sure. Vincent Salandria: IMAGE The Bastard Bullet - The Search For Legitimacy for Commission Exhibit 399 May I just say something about one other critic who I think is very significant who is self-published and therefore not well known but of tremendous importance. And that is Raymond Marcus. Raymond Marcus wrote The Bastard Bullet which was a book that demonstrated, beyond the purview of a doubt, that CE, Commission Exhibit 399, the magic bullet, was a plant and could not have been anything else other than a government plant. He did it with such beautiful exercise of logic, such a vigorous application of common sense that you must consider him a scientist in this field. After all that's essentially what science is. The rigorous application of common sense and Ray Marcus has so much common sense. The logic which he employs in the magic bullet is so marvelously applied to this case that I he think he completely demolished the Warren Report. IMAGE The House Select Committee on Assassinations, The Zapruder Film, and the Single Bullet Theory He recently produced The House Select Committee on Assassinations, The Zapruder Film, and the Single Bullet Theory and this demonstrates beyond question that Kennedy and Connally were definitely hit by separate bullets and therefore the Warren Report had to be wrong and the House Select Committee Report which befriended the single bullet theory was a farce and so self-evident. Again, no mystery when you really apply careful thinking to the evidence, there's nothing left of this assassination which constitutes a mystery. It's so clear. And Marcus makes clear that the shot evidence of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee Report are clearly wrong. He does it brilliantly. And he deserves enormous credit. David Starks: I assume it's obvious that there were multiple shooters and you believe that. Do you think that Oswald was an agent of US intelligence and, if so, was he even one of the shooters? Do you believe whether he was a shooter or not? Vincent Salandria: Dave he had to be an object, a servant, an agent of US intelligence. He was the perfect patsy. Carefully selected by US intelligence. Think of him: he was a US Marine who, going the course of his Marine training, studied Russian? Now look, the US Marines, like any military force anywhere in the world, is not a democratic institution. If he were studying Russian -- he was -- if he was studying Russian, then it was with the sanction of the US military. He became a defector. His mother always felt, told me, told the Commission, that she never felt he was a defector. She went to Washington she tells me and was treated with kid gloves; had an appointment in the State Department immediately. She was reassured not to worry about his defection when he had defected. He was sent over by US intelligence to the Soviet Union, and in their program of trying to get fake defectors in the Soviet Union. He was returned to the United States having married Marina, who was a niece of a KGB Colonel and the Soviets let him out which leads me to think that maybe he was doubled by the Soviets as a double agent. He returned and wrote to the American Communist party. He was interested in the Communist Party. He got a three-page response from Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party which leads me to be suspicious of that. At any rate they treated him with a great deal of respect. He performed the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans and it was quite clearly the product of US intelligence because he was the only member of that committee, a matter of some suspicion. He was befriended by Michael Paine, who had secret clearance, working in Bell Helicopter although his father George Lyman Paine had been a Trotskyist and for that kind of clearance, when you're associated with the family with left wing connections of that sort some quid pro quo has to be given. So Michael Paine, very likely, was doing favors for US intelligence in order to be able to have a secret clearance. He was associated with Oswald and he told me, Michael Paine told me, in an interview, that he would go with Oswald to right-wing meetings in the Dallas area and that Oswald would take very careful notes afterwards and he was apparently reporting on the right wing in Dallas. Michael Paine told me he went with him to the ACLU meeting and that Oswald joined the ACLU. So what you see is Oswald being dipped into every aspect of the American political spectrum. As my friend Jim Garrison was fond of saying, what he saw in New Orleans was the Cubanization process of Oswald. There he was being given pro-Castro airs. Then of course, whether or not it was he, someone posing as Oswald made a scene in the Mexico City Russian Embassy and then the Cuban Embassy. What you're seeing is -- incidentally he was operating in New Orleans out of the same building which was being utilized by anti-Castro people. So he was identified with pro-Castro people, anti-Castro people, pro-Soviet people, US Marine Corps, he was reportedly having shot at Edwin Walker, attacking the right, and apparently also perhaps picketing against Stevenson with the right wing in Dallas. He was all things to all political aspects of the American political spectrum. A typical pattern for an intelligence agent to follow. What they're doing is, making it impossible for any aspects of the American political scene to undertake investigation of attack on the official version for fear that they would be therefore vulnerable because Oswald had been associated with them. Associated with the liberals, associated with the right wing, associated with the Trotskyists, associated with the Soviet Union, associated with Castro -- a perfect, a perfect patsy. Sure, he was associated with American Intelligence. Did he do any firing, Dave? No, he did no firing. With that rifle, which fired, due to its sight, high and to the right; with that trigger mechanism which was defective; with his lack of skill as a marksman, he could have fired away all afternoon, right through the afternoon into the night and have done no damage. But was he doing any firing? No, the paraffin test indicated he hadn't fired a rifle. On December 9th -- think of this -- on December 9th -- Hoover wouldn't have had this kind of guts -- the respected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, just getting ready to undertake the job of investigating who killed Kennedy, is treated like the lowliest of shysters -- no lowly shyster would take that kind of treatment -- is sent this memorandum, same kind of memorandum by the-then Deputy -- really operating as the Attorney General of the United States -- Katzenbach telling him that he should leak to the press that Oswald did it, there was no conspiracy, and end speculation. Issac Don Levine, who was an old Czarist right-winger, came to the United States, had solid US intelligence connections. Dulles said, `Isaac Don Levine, I have known him, has been assigned by LIFE magazine to write an article about Marina.' Incidentally he never wrote such an article. He was assigned -- I'm sure by American Intelligence, not LIFE magazine -- to Marina Oswald to keep her quiet. `I have known him. I will talk to him. She will not so testify.' That's suborning perjury. That's a crime. So Allen Dulles was clearly a criminal. Now, he said very early, when the critics started to attack the Warren Commission, `If the critics do not believe the Warren Commission, do not believe that Oswald killed the president alone let them name names.' A heavy burden. I think, thanks to the work of Gaeton Fonzi, we can name names now. You can be sure that David Atlee Phillips, that fine gentleman, was very cozy with Allen Dulles. You can be absolutely sure that Dulles was not completely fired by JFK over the betrayal that the CIA, under Allen Dulles, did of Kennedy when they sucked him in to this [Bay of Pigs] enterprise contending to him that if it was not successful that the people who hit the beaches would be able to retreat in to the mountains and operate as guerrillas when there was no possible way of doing that. When the real plan was to have the US ships loaded with Marines, the follow-up airstrikes by US and invade when the Bay of Pigs effort failed -- that was the real plan. He recognized that. JFK recognized that and fired Dulles. He thought he fired him. When the Rockefeller Commission was looked at by reasonable people they could see that many of those people, including Ronald Reagan and others, had connections with intelligence and it looks like a pattern of the Commission, like the Warren Commission, was set up again. What happened is people didn't believe that that was a legitimate investigation either which led to the Church Committee and your friend Gaeton Fonzi was on the Church Committee. I think that the Church Committee was one of the more honest -- if you can even say that of the investigations -- in that it found extensive misbehavior, withholding by the intelligence agencies of information, negligence, and obviously lying about it. Only when you get political movement of that kind can you get change. No single president can do it. No single investigator can do it. No special investigator can do it. Nothing from within the government can do it. History has demonstrated that pressure has to be put upon the government in order for progressive changes to occur. Lincoln was not eager to free the slaves. But as the slaves began to pour out of the South into the Union Armies, he had to free them. Kennedy was very reluctant to support civil rights. But as the people marched together, white and black, poor and middle class, to get civil rights for blacks, Kennedy was pushed along. That's how history moves. Not by heroes within the governmental structures speaking out and cleaning things up. But pressure being brought from outside the government, on the government, that's what has to happen. That we must consider the people more important than the government, the individual more important than the state. When we all feel that, we all come together, respecting one another, loving one another as individuals, we will get a better state. Not until then. David Starks: What is the heart of the matter of this case? Not necessarily in a nutshell but as concise as it can be tied together. What is the most important thing about this case? Vincent Salandria: I think the most important evidence which tells you everything you have to know about who did it and how high up it was is what is reported in the Theodore H. White book of 1964, The Making of the President 1964, in which he says on the plane back, the presidential party, from Love Field to Andrews Air Force Base, there was a report from the Situation Room of the White House that Oswald was apprehended, Oswald killed the president, there was no conspiracy. That was before there was any evidence against Oswald. That was while everybody in the motorcade was aware of bullets whizzing in from different directions. That was while the Special Agents of the Secret Service protecting the president were preparing to prepare their affidavits or had prepared their affidavits to the effect that shots came from the grassy knoll, shots came from different directions. These were trained men who knew how to ascertain the sources of shots and had ascertained that they came from different directions and therefore there was an ambush. There was triangulation of fire. This was a systematic paramilitary killing of a president. While all this evidence was known, while they saw him, they saw the president being thrown leftward and backward into the presidential limousine when he was supposed to have been shot from the rear and therefore required, according to Newton's second law of motion to be driven forward rather than leftward and backward. And all of this could be wrong. Where Senator Yarborough in the motorcade said he smelled gunpowder in Dealey Plaza. All this could have been wrong. But at that evidence, Dealey Plaza reeked at that moment, at the killing of the president, that Dealey Plaza reeked of conspiracy. All of which may have been wrong. People heard more than three shots. Most of the witnesses thought the shots came from the grassy knoll. Zapruder thought the shots were coming from over his shoulder. All wrong say. But that's what we had at that time. We had conspiracy. And the presidential party was being told that there was no conspiracy and Oswald did it when there was no evidence against Oswald. He'd been picked up for the killing of Tippet in Irving, Texas. Not for the killing of the president. He wasn't charged with that till much, much later. The gun traced to him much, much later. I wrote to White and White told me that this came from the Situation Room. The heart of American Intelligence first married the single assassin concept. David Starks: It would have come from McGeorge Bundy. He was in charge. Vincent Salandria: He was in charge. He was in charge. Too smart to be fooled, that man. Now I wrote to Salinger who also reported this, that the same communications were given to the Cabinet plane over the Pacific flying to Japan. I asked him for the tape. I can show you all this correspondence. He agreed he would give it to me. He said he had given it to the Kennedy Library. It was in the National Archives. Then the head of the National Archives, Robert Bahmer would get it for me and then Bahmer said it's gone. Gone. Then I wrote to the Pentagon. A Colonel Cross said, `You can't get this. We only give it to people for governmental purposes.' And Salinger and White had used it for non-governmental purposes. And it's still coming out in the books. It never ends. "Let Us Begin Anew": An Oral History of the Kennedy Presidency, by Gerald S. and Deborah H. Strober, where Robert Manning, Assistant Secretary of State on the cabinet plane: "The news then came in that someone named Oswald who had been in the Soviet Union had done this. The news caused great alarm." [page 451] Brand new book. David Starks: That is in effect a smoking gun because they could not have known the evidence. It had not been assembled yet. Vincent Salandria: All they could have known is that Dealey Plaza cried out, Conspiracy! That, I think, tells you how high it was. David Starks: They were prepared to neutralize that from before the assassination. Vincent Salandria: They were telling the people on the Presidential plane, they were telling the people on the Cabinet plane, `Look, people in the motorcade, you were there. You know what the evidence is. Forget evidence. We are committed to Oswald and only Oswald. Forget what you saw. Forget what you heard. Forget what you smelled, that gunpowder. Forget what your senses tell you. When you get off this plane you know only one thing: that Lee Harvey Oswald killed your president. No one else was involved. No one else was involved. It was no conspiracy. Understand that? You also understand what you saw and heard. But forget that. You are to hold both of those things as true: Oswald did it and your senses tell you that it was a conspiracy. And now you are gripped in a paralyzed doublethink process. George Orwell tells you what you are now. You're nothing. You are our subjects. We are the power. We are the killers.' David Starks: We are what we tell you you are. Vincent Salandria: We are what we tell you you are, and your hands are tied, and we've got you where we could hurt you. David Starks: Another case in point is Kenny McDonnell and Dave Powers in the follow-up car. Initially, `We're going to report there were shots from the grassy knoll.' But they decided, `Well, we better go along with what they're telling us.' And they changed their story and later revealed the true story. So in effect, the people that knew the truth knew they couldn't tell the truth and knew they had to go along with it because they realized the scope and the power that was arrayed against them and that preserving order, preserving the government -- Vincent Salandria: Preserving democracy -- David Starks: Preserving democracy by destroying democracy was more important. Vincent Salandria: Of course. Preserving My Lai by destroying My Lai and its people. This is the reasoning of the Military-Industrial Complex. This is the reasoning of these people of gigantic power, enormous power, enormous arrogance and murderous in their instincts. David Starks: More important to dominate the world than to feed the masses in their own country. It's a perverse sort of a priority but that looks like the way things are. Vincent Salandria: That's the way things are. And will be until the people use their knowledge. We all know, I submit, at some level what happened in Dealey Plaza. We all know what was behind it. We all know that they are still in power. When we are willing to act like people who know should act as responsible citizens rising up and not tolerating this abuse of power this manipulation of people, then the world will change for the better. Not until. David Starks: Democracy will be restored at that point. Vincent Salandria: Thank you David. David Starks: Okay, I know we're out of time now. I appreciate this very much. Vincent Salandria: You're very appreciated, thank you. https://ratical.org/FalseMystery