HOW THE WORLD WORKS

Dear Doctor Greene,

I’m contacting you as a fan of your books (and documentary films), as a fellow writer (three books in print and numerous TV and screen credits), but mainly as a researcher myself. My research is very much ‘physics related,’ as, in an odd, sort of back door way, has been my writing career and my life at large. For example, my belief in the importance of physics – the laws thereof – recently ‘caused’ me to lose a major development deal with HBO, which was on the verge of bringing my last book (a memoir) to the small screen as a series; a deal that likely would have made me… since I would have been both the creator of the show and (via the lead actor) its protagonist… rich and famous. (The scare quotes imply the complexity of the causal chain, not the reality of it.) But more about that to come, assuming you hang in with me here.

Two of your books.

A quick trip to my book-list page at Amazon.com (aside from more or less verifying my writer-credentials) will also reveal a physics connection, one that I would bet some of your students have come across in their ‘light’ reading lives: my first book, a semi-autobiographical novel called Cosmic Banditos is described by one reviewer as ‘a bizarre combination of tequila guzzling, pot smuggling, hand grenades, doggy farts, and quantum physics [that] out-gonzos Hunter S. Thompson.’ The protagonist, a slightly unbalanced fugitive from the law hiding out in the jungles of South America becomes obsessed with quantum physics after his bandito buddy Jose mugs a theoretical physicist and his family on vacation, and via the spoils of the mugging decides that the physicist holds the key to ‘What It All Means’ and embarks on a quest to confront the hapless fellow, a quest that disrupts the lives of everyone he stumbles upon, not the least being the physicist himself. (I summarize my tale for perspective, should you at some point decide that I am disrupting your life with this message.)

To a real, living PhD-ed physicist like yourself, Banditos is possibly dilettante-ism at its most annoying. On the other hand, according to an email that I assume is genuine, my book ‘caused’ at least one reader to do further research (on quantum mechanics) that, he claimed, eventually resulted in a PhD., plus a full-blown academic career in physics.

A bit further down the causal chain, Banditos was eventually bought for the movies by John Cusack’s film company, with me hired on to adapt my book. Although no actual movie has (yet) resulted, I bring this up because in the course of further research I paid a visit to the Stanford University Physics Department (SLAC) to get a more direct and personal sense of what physicists are like to be around, and to see where my imagination might take me while being right there at ground zero where the first quark was… observed (would ‘inferred’ be more accurate?).

Two of my books.

It was during this time (2006) that I was initially exposed to your work, via The Fabric of the Cosmos. I went on to read The Elegant Universe, and just recently The Hidden Reality. I enjoyed the latter so much that I dug out my dog-eared, much underlined copy of The Fabric of the Cosmos to read again. Which brings us to my area of research and the purpose behind my contacting you.

I consider one of the many strengths of your book-writing to be your care and insight in the use of language in describing the physical world (reality) and events therein; I refer not only to your clever use of analogies and popular culture allusions to create mind pictures of complex phenomena but to your many warnings regarding the misuse of words and how they can mislead. With this caveat in mind, I believe that it’s accurate to say that you, like myself in my current research – and I’ll capitalize to emphasize that I’m trying to say as much as possible in as few as possible words -- seek to understand How the World Works (HTWW).

Aside from its alliterative ring, my use of ‘World’ as opposed to the U-word best defines the difference in our areas of interest – I will much better define mine in a moment, but first I beg your indulgence while I list some ground rules in seeking to understanding How the World Works, by my definition and, I trust, yours as well (see if you agree).

Back in 2006, when I began formal inquiry of HTTW, I made a crucial decision (which would cost me my fame and fortune in 2012), and which I came to perceive as an actual ‘law,’ in the sense that I understand the concept from your books: My procedural law of research, simply stated: ‘Any explanation for an event that clearly violates the known laws of physics will be rejected, no matter the implications regarding long-held assumptions.’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, via his most memorable fictional character, perhaps phrased my ‘law’ most eloquently, inarguably even: ‘Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ I suspect that a challenge to find an exception to this tenet would go unanswered, perhaps especially in physics. It’s almost as if A. Conan were referring directly to quantum mechanics itself, in the way he (however obliquely) paraphrases Sir Arthur Eddington’s ‘Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it’s stranger than we can think.’

You may be wondering why I’m burning words and, worse, your valuable time with so obvious a reformulation of what is also known as ‘common sense.’

The thing is, though, Doctor Greene, we are about to cross a Rubicon of sorts, and on the far bank lies a humdinger of a catch-22: If my theory of HTWW is correct, you will stop reading within a couple or so more paragraphs, and should you provide a reason for doing so, it will be a self-deceit. (Should you keep reading solely to ‘prove me wrong,’ I would submit that you have proved me right.)

In your books – which, I’ll repeat, represent a search for HTWW -- you deftly relate the Very Big (as in Cosmology) with the Very Small (as in particle physics). I’ll here attempt to do likewise in defining my sphere of HTWW inquiry. My theory, my version, of the Very Big is as follows:

We have been lied to about every major historical event since World War II. I refer to mainstream history/the mainstream media (TV/newspapers/magazines/books/plus 'Hollywood' feature films) as the perpetrators of the lies; 'we' being loosely defined as the United States culture as a whole; zeitgeist as illusion kind of the thing. My choice of this ‘slice of time’ for analysis is not arbitrary. There is evidence (to come) that the aftermath of the World War II led to what in your version of the Very Big is called a ‘phase transition,’ i.e., a fundamental alteration in HTTW.

I'll let you refute it.

'If there was any doubt at the turn of the twentieth century, by the turn of the twenty-first, it was a foregone conclusion: when it comes to revealing the true nature of reality, common experience is deceptive.' Your words, of course. This is in fact the first sentence of The Hidden Reality, a title so literally revelatory of my own theory that I’m envious it’s already taken. Common experience is deceptive. Yes, we shall return to that nugget of wisdom…

‘But my writing is about physics, not history!’ you might rejoin. ‘One has nothing to do with the other!’ If this is what you're thinking, I'll let you yourself refute it »

It's hardly arguable that the soldier's presence in Iraq is based on 'an untruth' (Saddam’s possession of WMDs). My contention is that the 'untruths' go much, much deeper than this fiction.

If, as you repeat in your writing many times and in many ways, the laws of physics determine all we perceive, then history (however you define it) and physics must be seen as inextricably bound together as the nuclear elements of the most stable atom, with physic’s laws as a sort of exclusionary principle of the most basic sort. To slightly rephrase my ‘law’: 'Any explanation for an historical event that is in direct conflict with the fundamental laws of physics must be rejected, no matter the larger historical implications.'

In keeping with the physics connection, my version of the Very Small (your particle physics) attempts to explain the specific processes by which the lies are (generally) successfully perpetrated, in spite of their transparency. So my references to physics are more than a conceit; more than a way of imagining, of creating mental pictures -- as you do so well with sliced loaves of bread as Time and bowling balls on trampolines as gravity’s process and the like.

The laws of physics do not determine what did happen, but they can define clearly what did not. However, by logical deduction, what did happen may sometimes be inferred. An example of such, which should be of particular interest to you, follows shortly. I emphasize should because if my catch-22 has not yet kicked in, it is likely about to, with your cessation of reading the result. But please give me one more paragraph. For the record, I want you to know why, out of all the successful physicists out there (many of whom have likewise written excellent books that I have read), I chose you to contact. The fact is that you, Doctor Greene, are responsible for a major breakthrough in my research, in my vision of HTWW.

I will now quote the sentence from The Fabric of the Cosmos that led directly to my vital insight into the process by which my ‘Cosmological’ law (we have been lied to about everything) is successfully carried out. On page 164 you write of the absurd violations of common experience that would result should time (as we perceive it) run backwards: ‘…brains spontaneously acquiring memories of things that didn’t happen, video cameras producing images of things that never were, and so on, all of which seem extraordinarily unlikely – a proposed explanation of the past at which even Oliver Stone would scoff.’ (My italics.)

In my initial reading of The Fabric of the Cosmos some seven years ago, I blew right by this sentence; at that time I was distracted by the challenge of translating my doggy fart/quantum physics-laden book prose to the language of the big screen. But this time the sentence, the italicized part, struck me an almost physical blow, a double whammy -- disappointment followed by what I can best describe as a creeping epiphany, a suspicion that through additional research eventually led to my process-theory, which led to this message.

As a writer myself, I’m consciously aware of what any ‘good’ reader (one who actually pays attention to what he’s reading) is unconsciously aware: In well-wrought prose, the writer’s deep meaning is in the subtext. It’s in the subtext, be it of a sentence or an oeuvre, that you will find the writer’s heart and soul. As I wrote in my last book, which is in part a ‘writer’s memoir,’ the misrepresentation of facts (lying) in nonfiction is ‘sometimes’ okay… ‘But what’s never okay is to lie in subtext, purposely cause the reader to have a rush of insight about the workings of the world which the writer knows to be false. Lying is subtext is a sin.’ (Notice that my view is that it is in subtext wherein a writer casts his insight regarding the 'workings of the world,' or HTWW.)

Let's analyze the subtext of the above quote from The Fabric of the Cosmos:

‘Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy and did it alone (as reported by the Warren Commission). This is the past and any questioning of it -- Oliver Stone being a prime perpetrator – is somehow akin to a brain ‘spontaneously acquiring memories that did not happen,’ or a video camera ‘producing images of things that never were.’ To put it bluntly (as I further interpret your subtext), people like Oliver Stone are, at least on a certain limited level (the perception of the events of November 22, 1963 in Dallas), insane.’ (In keeping with our mutual respect for the laws of physics, let’s define the word ‘insane’ as meaning ‘Unable to perceive an obvious truth as directly implied by the laws of physics.’)

Quibbling about the definition of 'insane' aside (feel free to sub 'irrational' if you like), do you not wholeheartedly agree with my analysis? A thorough scan of your books reveals no other analogy/allusion/metaphor/observation with historical implications – let alone of such profound import. Furthermore, to throw in an ‘observation’ of that (historical) magnitude in a book about physical laws and the nature of the cosmos with such casual aplomb – and to use such extreme examples of ‘nonsense’ in your set up to the punch line of Oliver Stone’s nutcase status -- presupposes that in your view the matter of who killed JFK is as settled as is relativity’s grasp of gravity -- and the settlement is as per related by the Warren Commission/mainstream media.

You.

Doctor Greene, I do not theorize that you committed the writer’s sin of lying (consciously telling an untruth) in the above quotation from The Fabric of the Cosmos; I don't know what you 'know'; I am contacting you in the hope that I will be enlightened on this matter, and possibly (though this is unlikely) enlighten you as to not only HTWW, but HYWW -- How Your World Works, i.e., that of successful physicists.Simply, though: your version of the JFK assassination is historically, i.e., factually, incorrect, provably so via the laws of physics, as the following archival material will show (and in doing so, likewise correct your judgment of the mental state of Oliver Stone and others who doubt the official version of the JFK assassination). But also, the following is a clear example of how history and physics are entwined (perhaps ‘entangled’ is more descriptive): Here we go

Although there is more to come in correcting your historical inaccuracy (plus psychoanalytical judgment), Doctor Mantik's use of the laws of physics (via optical densitometry) to prove that the official autopsy X-ray is fabricated (does not depict 'reality') should represent to you an operational example of what I mean by the laws of physics as an 'historical exclusionary principle.' If not, try this

The above is 'exclusionary' in multiple senses of the word: Both of these official autopsy images can not depict reality. One excludes the other.

We choose hard data… as our guide… and seek the simplest yet most wide-reaching theories capable of explaining [observations]. This severely restricts the theories we pursue. Your words, The Fabric of the Cosmos, Preface.

George O.

The above 'hard data' (including Doctor Mantik's optical densitometry work) 'severely restricts' your theory of the assassination from being an appropriate statement about history. I phrase it this way not only to echo your words but because at the very leastthere now should be sufficient doubt in your mind about the Warren Commission/mainstream media/official version that you owe Oliver Stone (and the rest of the 'nutcases') an apology.

The most likely explanation for the multiple observations of a wound in the back of JFK's head is simply that there was such a wound, and since we already know via the laws of physics (via optical densitometry) that the official autopsy X-ray was fabricated, it follows that the official autopsy photo is certainly a fabrication. Here once again is the exclusionary principle at work: The witnesses’ observations (taken en toto) and the autopsy photo are mutually exclusive. One excludes the other. (Strictly speaking, I have strayed from the arena of physics with the above witness interviews, since no law of physics would be broken if all those folks were merely hallucinating or lying about the head wound they observed. However, since the witnesses back up Doctor Mantik's work on the X-ray fabrication -- the X-ray shows an intact rear of the skull -- I feel justified in including them.)

Me.

As you often do so effectively, Doctor Greene, in your elucidations of HTWW, I’ll here refer to an outside, well thought-of source; this is not ‘an appeal to authority,’ but rather a way of short-handing, so as to attempt to clarify a slippery or murky concept.

‘The greater the degree of intelligence, the greater the degree of insanity.’ This is George Orwell from his classic dystopian novel 1984, thematic aspects of which bear heavily on my theories (Very Large and Very Small) of HTWW. (I quote Orwell – as I quote you – for clarity, not as evidence.)

What Orwell is referring to here is an observation regarding human behavior that I see as his most important contribution to understanding HTWW on the level of ‘history’: The notion of ‘doublethink.’ Doublethink is the sort of insanity I refer to; they are two sides of the same psycho-pathological coin. Put simply, doublethink is denial on steroids – ‘denial’ in the sense of psychologists’ term ‘cognitive dissonance.’

But doublethink is much more, and, in a sense, as it is insanity, it is my catch-22. See if you follow, as I quote Orwell: 'The first stage in the discipline [of doublethink], which can be taught even to young children, is called 'crimestop.' Crimestop is the faculty of stopping short, as if by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the [inability to understand] the simplest arguments… and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.'

Regarding the above evidence, are you 'misunderstanding the simplest arguments', i.e., that the fabrication of the official autopsy X-ray implies governmental collusion in the assassination? (Since the X-ray was ‘produced’ and under the archival protection of the government, elements of the government must have colluded in the crime.)

Or will you stop reading because you are 'bored or repelled' by the notion that you are wrong about the JFK assassination (and Oliver Stone's mental state)?

Are you doublethinking right now (perhaps through the use of the ad hominem pejorative 'conspiracy theorist')?

Now you may be thinking that I'm making some extreme assumptions (and accusations) based on one simple phrase (not even a complete sentence) in a rather complex argument regarding an altogether different subject than 'historical reality.' As a nonfiction writer and journalist, over the years I've found the 'simplest' turn of phrase can have profound implications:

Imagine that you'd turned your phrase thus: '…a proposed explanation of the past at which even a Holocaust-believer would scoff.'

A whole 'other' worldview would be implied here, no? Likewise, your facile, uncalled for insult directed at Oliver Stone and all that it implied (see above 'subtext analysis') in a book of physics tells me how deeply imbedded in you is the mainstream view of history. It implies a belief that what we're told by the media/government is -- aside from the expected, relatively minor prevarications perpetrated by any government -- the truth. You certainly do not believe in the sort of systemic deceit I claim to be the case in my thesis that we have been lied to about every major historical event since World War II.

I must repeat: As with quantum mechanics, mine is an explanation of events based fundamentally on probability. Further, I herein conduct my inquiry into processes (how we've been lied to since WW II) with this limitation: I will deal solely with the behavior of theoretical and/or experimental physicists with successful careers, i.e., physicists who themselves seek to understand HTTW, and make a successful living in doing so; you being a prime example and reference point for clarity in explanation. So when I assert that you will stop reading this message now or soon, or that you are currently engaged in doublethink, I am making a statement of probability about physicists of your general description.

I feel safe in classifying physicists of this description as being similar in their historical worldviews and in their reactions to this message for many reasons. For the sake of brevity I will mention one so we can get on with it: In your Preface to The Fabric of the Cosmos you do a thank-you list of associates (virtually all physicists, I assume) who read the book in manuscript form and made editorial suggestions. Twenty-nine names. Assuming that the offending (for me) phrase impugning Oliver Stone’s sanity did not get stuck in at the very last minute, this means that a whole lot of physicists are as ignorant of the JFK autopsy evidence of fabrication as you are; in any event, they either did not correct you on your erroneous historical observation or, if they did, you ignored them, which is a version of doublethink in action in its own right.

Moreover, myself having had books published by major houses (two by Penguin and one by Random House), I well know of the meticulous fact and legal vetting every book is subject to. (One of my vetting-lawyers suggested I change a name in my first memoir because I had the guy 'pass a joint.') Although your publisher, Knopf, is one of the most prestigious, it appears that its vetting lawyers are ignorant of the fact that in a 1985 jury trial, twelve of our peers ruled that JFK was assassinated by elements of the CIA. This was stipulated by the jury foreman, Leslie Armstrong, right after the trial. Here is her quote to the press immediately after the proceedings:

‘The evidence was clear. The CIA had killed President Kennedy, [E. Howard] Hunt had been a part of it, and that evidence was so painstakingly presented, [that it] should now be examined by the relevant institutions of the United States government so that those responsible for the assassination might be brought to justice.’

Although this was not a criminal trial but rather a libel case -- in which rules of evidence are less stringent -- one would think that someone who read your manuscript would have known of this refutation of your gaff (or perhaps known of the death bed confession of E. Howard Hunt -- ‘accused’ in the lawsuit of involvement in the assassination -- in which he verified that high level CIA agents orchestrated the crime).

The above is especially telling (in terms of physicists) given that according to national polls three-quarters of the American people do not believe the Warren Commission's claim of no-conspiracy. (Belief that 'the CIA did it' is admittedly less prevalent.) In other words, statistically, it would appear that physicists are less aware of the historical reality of the JFK assassination than even the 'average' American. Which begs the question that is at the heart of my current research, and this message:

Why are those most qualified to expose the lies the least apt to do so?

The answer, I submit, brings us to a more complete definition of doublethink: ‘To know and not to know, to be aware of absolute truth while telling carefully constructed lies; to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic [and in doing so] to forget whatever it was necessary to forget then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed and then promptly to forget it again. And above all to apply the same process to the process itself; that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness and then once again to become unconscious of the act of [self] hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word doublethink involved the use of doublethink.'

A conceptual mouthful. But what of the process itself? The complexity of doublethink can be boiled down to perhaps the most operationally important Orwellism: 'All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory.'

Think about it, please, Doctor Greene. Have you not already 'forgotten' that the official autopsy X-ray and photograph were fabricated? Or, now that a bit of time has gone by since your exposure to the laws-of-physics arguments that prove the fabrication, are you 'finding flaws,' although you can't quite define them right now at this very moment?

What sort of institutional doublethink must be at the root of the media’s de facto collusion in the assassination?

Are you not ‘on board’ with ABC (and Peter Jennings) and every other mainstream media outlet without exception in their denial of the in-your-face evidence?

But let's assume I am mistaken; let's assume you are 'interested' in the evidence I'm putting before you. Let's even assume that right now you are thinking that it does in fact appear that you are wrong about the assassination and Oliver Stone's shaky mental state. If this is the case, the probability is that via your version of doublethink you (unconsciously) 'know' that given a little bit of time, you can safely return to your 'correct' thinking: By this time tomorrow if you have any memory of reading this message at all, it will be hazy and to the effect of 'What was that lunatic email I got yesterday all about?' But, more likely, you will have a simple though complete 'victory' over your own memory and not think of it at all.

Writing about doublethink in the way I am is frustrating because it is in principle impossible to successfully point out that another person is subject to doublethink.

So why am I doing this? As you yourself strive in your discipline for breakthroughs in understanding, say, a union of quantum mechanics and general relativity, perhaps I am hoping for a breakthrough: in awakening you and other physicists and scientists who are -- as the saying goes -- 'asleep.' I do in fact believe that doublethink -- and the belief in the lies we've been told (herein referring to those told us since WW II) -- is a 'curable' condition. Hey, I did it.

The 'cure'? Only one. Conscious, dedicated self-reflection. But more about 'the cure' to come.

'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' Orwell, 1984.

'Physicists such as myself are acutely aware that the reality we observe… may have little to do with the reality… that's out there. Your words, The Fabric of the Cosmos, Preface. Amazing how you seem to be so in tune with Orwell… yet...

Back to George O and doublethink: ‘The greater the degree of intelligence, the greater the degree of insanity.’

That you occupy a place over on the right-hand end of the ‘intelligence’ spectrum is a given; your books and documentary films are proof of that.

It's your high intelligence combined with the very high probability that you do not now and, more importantly, will not in the future see the historical reality behind the JFK assassination that accounts for your high degree of insanity.

But how can I be so sure?

An image you've seen before, but worth seeing again: About half the witnesses to the fist-sized exit wound in the back of JFK's skull (notice that they are all pointing to the location of the wound):

You know that they are testifying to a real and true aspect of 'reality,' of history. Right?

You also know that this photograph must be genuine. Right?

‘Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory thoughts in one’s mind simultaneously and accepting both of them.’ Orwell, 1984.

As James Douglass, author of JFK and the Unspeakable; Why He Died and Why It Matters implies, if the autopsy X-ray and photo are fabricated, not only does the whole house of cards of what you believe about the assassination collapse, but, being the highly intelligent human that you are, you know that your whole way of looking at 'historical reality' is in severe danger, i.e., you know that this matter transcends the death of John F. Kennedy. So, however you go about it, you will somehow 'use logic against logic' to 'believe in both of them' (the witnesses and the photograph/X-ray), in effect 'canceling them out.' And 'the ultimate subtlety… to apply the same process to the process itself…' while '[maintaining unconsciousness] of the act of [self] hypnosis you had just performed.'

But my having pointed out the above creates another level of doublethink complexity, resulting in further mental gyrations on your part to make yourself believe that my (and/or Orwell's) thinking is flawed; or it certainly doesn't apply to you.

And your (and the media’s) predicament regarding fabricated evidence and the implications thereof gets way worse.

That's John Costella, PhD., an Australian physicist specializing in optics. Although the freeway sign was the smoking gun, Doctor Costella (and others, like legendary photo analyst Jack White) eventually exposed more than a dozen separate proofs that the film had been altered -- fabricated, actually -- unquestionably by the perpetrators of the crime, to hide evidence of what actually happened during the assassination, i.e., their guilt.

At the risk of overkill, here's one more laws-of-physics proof that the Zapruder film does not depict 'reality'.

The evidence that the Zapruder Film is a fabrication is overwhelming. (A link to Doctor Costella’s complete lecture follows this message. You can connect from there to links to other researchers who back up his findings.)

My friend Walter Iooss, one of the world's foremost photographers, appears in the clip. Although I've been a professional photographer and am good at the craft, Walter is in another realm. (Maybe take a quick look at Walter’s mastery of the craft at walteriooss.com). Walter knows photography as you know physics, and as you've just found out, Walter agrees that the Zapruder frame did not 'come through Zapruder's camera,' i.e., it's a fabrication.

At some point in researching the JFK assassination -- and this occurred with me while examining the Zapruder Film -- one becomes subject to what I can only describe as the willies, a.k.a. the rabbit hole effect:

The Rabbit Warren Willies.

More about the rabbit 'warren' to come (and how people doublethink their way out of it), but let's remind ourselves of some of your opening words from The Hidden Reality:

(I)t was a foregone conclusion: when it comes to revealing the true nature of reality, common experience is deceptive.' From The Hidden Reality.

I'll stray once again from the laws of physics, but for good reason: I will eventually need to present more evidence of my (I assume) startling theory that we have been lied to about everything in the last half century,and meanwhile I need to answer a common objection to the theory of Zapruder Film fakery. 'How,' goes the objection, 'could the film have been altered, given that it was under the physical control of Life magazine?' The assumption here being that it is highly unlikely that the country’s most influential magazine (at that time) was an integral part of a conspiracy to murder our president.

Indeed, the Zapruder Film was quickly bought by Life; Elements of the U.S. Government (the Secret Service/CIA/FBI) only had possession of it for less than two days, not nearly enough time to do the complex alterations that we see in the extant version. The explanation for this in fact bears on my over all theory about our having been lied to about everything. (My phraseology was originally 'virtually everything;' but, being unable to find even one exception, I eventually dropped the qualifier.)

At the time of the assassination, Life was run by a man named C.D. Jackson, a close personal and professional associate of Henry Luce, owner of Time-Life, Inc.; Luce, by the way, was very close to Allen Dulles, the former DCI -- head of the CIA -- who was fired by JFK for his part in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. (Notwithstanding that he should have been a 'person of interest' if not an outright suspect in the assassination, Dulles was tapped by Lyndon Johnson as an important member of the Warren Commission.)

Here is a bit of the Wikipedia bio of Life's C.D. Jackson:

A few words about Operation Mockingbird. As it grew, the Op's goal was to take control of the United States media in all its forms and functions, not just ‘to influence.’ More to come on this but as I believe will become apparent, the implied operational purpose of Mockingbird was physics-related, in that its most spectacular 'successes' (by its own standards) were designed to persuade the American citizenry to ignore their fundamental laws in its perception of world events; indeed, the classic Orwellism 'perception management' is to be found in many of the Agency's recently declassified internal documents.

That Operation Mockingbird was launched almost simultaneously with the CIA's inception (1947) is also significant: Frank Wisner, the head of the Wall Street lawyers and bankers who founded the Agency, knew from the get-go that grand-level deceit was at the very foundation of the Agency’s covert goals -- for example, by it's charter, the CIA was forbidden from meddling in U.S. internal affairs. 'Controlling the media' would seem to fall under this proscription.

'They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.' Orwell, 1984, p. 160.

Mockingbird was so quickly successful that by the late 1950's the CIA’s inner circle was referring to the U.S. media as 'Wisner's Wurlitzer,' for the way Wisner played it like a vast, complex but wholly subservient instrument.

But back to the Zapruder Film's custodian and Mockingbird co-founder, C.D. Jackson. For our purposes the most telling bio-information comes from Francis Stoner Saunders' The Cultural Cold War, an impeccably sourced (and 'non-conspiratorial') historical tome that closely examines post-World War II U.S.-Soviet relations:

'[Dwight] Eisenhower knew C.D. Jackson well from his wartime campaigns… and had been tutored by him in the art of manipulating audiences… Jackson was to be Special Advisor to the President [Eisenhower] for Psychological Warfare, a position that made C.D. an official minister of propaganda with almost unlimited powers.'

According to Ms. Saunders' research, before heading up Life, as part of his 'propaganda minister' duties, Jackson was the CIA's most valuable Hollywood insider: 'In the search for allies in Hollywood… C.D. Jackson, as usual, was embarrassed for choice.' Here Saunders lists virtually every Hollywood mogul of that time as de facto -- if not outright -- CIA assets. 'But C.D.'s most valuable asset in Hollywood was CIA agent Carlton Alsop… [who was] working undercover at Paramount Studios.' Jackson oversaw Alsop's 'regular movie reports for the CIA and Psychological Strategy Board.'

The Cultural Cold War goes on: 'Alsop's secret reports make extraordinary reading. They reveal just how far the CIA was able to extend its reach into the film industry…' And C.D. Jackson, was, in the 1950s, before moving on to helm Life, the CIA's 'man in Hollywood.'

To sum up: Immediately after the assassination the Zapruder Film was in the possession of not merely a CIA asset -- which virtually all the media big shots were/are (via Operation Mockingbird) – he was not just a full blown CIA Agent, but rather one of a handful of CIA founders, a man whose job (as 'minister of propaganda) was to deceive the American people, and who had direct access to the sorts of technicians (special effects wizards) that would be needed to alter the 'definitive attestation' of how John F. Kennedy died, i.e., the Z Film. (That a man of this sort ran Life at all should come as a shock to any thinking person.)

Since by the laws of physics the Zapruder Film is not a depiction of 'reality,' what are we to make of it, historically speaking?

Methinks an apology is in order..

Ironically, 'back and to the left' never happened, although it has been viewed by many, Oliver Stone among them, as proof of a shot from the 'grassy knoll,' which was in front and to the right. In fact, not one witness to JFK's reaction to the head shot described 'back and to the left'; virtually all of them said he 'slumped forward.' A good question: Why, since the film was altered, undoubtedly by the perpetrators of the crime, would such an incriminating image be part of the final result of the manipulation, when, in reality, it didn't even happen that way?

Decisions had to be made; the fabricators did not have the total control of today's technology. The 'back and to the left' movement of JFK's body was almost certainly an unavoidable artifact resulting from excising several seconds of the action, as explained here.

Aside from the Secret Service limo driver bringing the President's car to a halt -- to provide a stationary target for the headshot -- Professor James Fetzer has compiled 15 proofs
of Secret Service complicity, such as:

The man talking about 'protection' (Secret Service complicity) is the late Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, who at the time of the assassination was the liaison between the Pentagon and the CIA for clandestine operations; a true insider and who has stated publicly that JFK was killed by elements of the U.S National Security State, mainly the CIA and Secret Service -- agreeing with the jury in the Hunt libel trial. (Prouty was a collaborator on Oliver Stone's film and the inspiration for the Donald Sutherland character.) Aside from the limo stop, another obvious element of 'reality' that had to be cut from the Zapruder Film was the blow out to the back of JFK's head (which, as we've seen, more than a score of qualified witnesses -- doctors, nurses, one Secret Service Agent -- testified to).

Doctor Greene, in an assbackward's sort of way, you are correct to berate Oliver Stone for not getting it right. (Stone made JFK in 1991, before the research was done on the Zapruder Film; before it was shown to be an inauthentic depiction of reality.) Ironically, you are even quite correct in your use of absurd imagery in mocking him; in evoking images like '…[motion picture] cameras producing images of things that never were… (a proposed explanation of the past at which even Oliver Stone would scoff.’)

Talk about being right for the wrong reason!

In theory (another should), with the clear and redundant proofs of Zapruder Film alteration (aside from Doctor Costella’s Youtube lecture, also see the book The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, edited by James Fetzer), we need not know anything else about the assassination to grasp the staggering implications we are faced with, not only regarding the powers behind the death of our 35th president, but possibly the very nature of historical reality.

I’ll let you have the last word (for now), Doctor Greene.

END OF PART ONE

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