At CAPA Forum, JFK Experts See Need, Momentum For Assassination Records Release

March 22, 2017

Federal Judge John Tunheim, former chair of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), headlined an expert faculty March 16 in the nation’s capital advocating for compliance with the JFK Assassination Records Act’s deadline of release of President Kennedy’s death records.

The law, approved unanimously by Congress in 1992, mandates the release by Oct. 26 of all U.S. government records related to President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Experts at the forum at the National Press Club organized by Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) estimated that some 3,600 documents remain secret, largely because of objections, obstruction or confusion by various agencies.

Judge Tunheim (shown in a photo by Noel St. John), now chief federal judge for Minnesota, keynoted a news conference at the forum’s beginning. He outlined the challenges his presidentially appointed commission overcame in reviewing and releasing some four million pages of assassination-related material in the 1990s.

In coordination with the conference, the Justice Integrity Project published a column Experts Seek Compliance By Officials On JFK Records by CAPA board member Andrew Kreig. “Leading former government officials and other JFK experts,” the column began, “are among those who have called for full release by the National Archives of still-classified records regarding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

The complete conference aside from the opening welcome by Kreig, the event organizer, is available on a video by independent film maker Randolph Benson, producer/director also The Searchers and a speaker at the forum.

Part I (1:31:44 mins.) is here. That segment showed Forum and CAPA Chairman Dr. Cyril H. Wecht introducing Tunheim. Following that were remarks by historian and author Dr. John M. Newman, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigant and journalist Jefferson Morley and his attorney, James H. Lesar, president of the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC).

Newman (shown in a photo by Noel St. John), creator of all photos below aside from file portraits) is a former Army intelligence officer for two decades whose duty included serving as assistant to the National Security Agency director.

Newman has since taught history as a professor at the University of Maryland and James Madison University, and has authored multiple cutting-edge historical and investigative books. Among them are JFK and Vietnam (republished this year), Oswald and the CIA and Where Angels Tread Lightly, the first of a multi-volume history of President Kennedy’s assassination.

Newman, first in his book JFK and Vietnam, is a leading proponent of the thesis that Kennedy antagonized intelligence and military power structure by taking steps to withdraw from the Vietnam War, including by a directive in October 1963.

Dr. Wecht (shown in a file photo), a longtime coroner, medical school professor, attorney and author, then delivered a forensic tutorial on the scientific impossibility of the Warren Commission’s “single bullet theory” that blames Lee Harvey Oswald exclusively for the killing.

He drew from the audience CAPA board members Michael Nurko (center) and Jerry Policoff to represent the approximate seating positions of Kennedy and Texas Gov. John Connally in a presidential limo in Dallas when they were shot. Observing the demonstration from the audience at left in the photo by Noel St. John was author and Infowars White House correspondent Dr. Jerome Corsi, who has written extensively about JFK research, including the book Who Really Killed Kennedy?

Wecht then demonstrated (as he has many times before many audiences) the medical and other scientific impossibility of the so-called “single bullet theory” that the Warren Commission relied upon in its 1964 report to assign all blame for the shooting solely to Oswald.

Part II of the Benson film (here, at 1:38:34 mins.) began with “Next Steps in Fact-Finding” by Lesar and Lawrence Schnapf, a New York-based attorney and co-chair of the CAPA legal committee.

Schnapf (shown in a file photo) described how current events reflect the JFK assassination’s relevance today in ways, he said, are frequently missed by what he described as a timid news media reluctant to admit the long cover-up of relevant hard evidence disputing the Warren Report’s findings.

He described also progress in organizing a CAPA event next Nov. 20-21 in Houston at the Southwestern School of Law entitled “The People v. Lee Oswald: A 21st Century examination of the forensic evidence in the assassination of President John Kennedy.”

Lesar, the AARC president (shown at right), advocated for further investigations by Congress, particularly regarding new evidence that the CIA impeded during the 1970s congressional probe.

The final panel was “Open Government In 2017: Researchers’ Guide To Documents, Witnesses & Freedom of Information.”

Moderating the panel was Kreig, an author, historian and journalist who organized the CAPA conference. The panel focused on practical solutions to document research on topics beyond JFK research.

Nate Jones, director of the Freedom of Information Act Project at the National Security Archive, George Washington University, showed the audience a long National Archives printout identifying the 3,603 documents identified as “withheld in full” pertaining to the JFK assassination, as of February 2016. He is portrayed in a file photo from an appearance on C-SPAN. Jones, author of the new book, Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War, also spoke generally about the challenges of unearthing hidden documents.

The second panelist was Adam A. Marshall, the Knight Foundation Litigation Attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP). His work is heavily focused on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation and he described the many obstacles that information-seekers face in seeking compliance under FOIA law.

Finally, the award-winning film maker Benson (shown below, like Marshall above, in Noel St. John photos), returned the discussion squarely to JFK research. Benson, an instructor in Film & Video at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, described the gratifications and challenges of making The Searchers, which chronicled courageous JFK assassination researchers and witnesses.
,
Dr. Wecht closed the event with an overview of the session’s highlights and importance before attendees convened at a special reception for speakers and CAPA members in another room at the press club.

CAPA (www.capa-hq.com) organized the news conference (which attracted at least two White House reporters) and forum. The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) founded Sunshine Week to foster open government via events like this throughout the nation.

CAPA Coverage of JFK Assassination Records Conference March 16 During Sunshine Week

Top Experts To Assess JFK Murder Records, Revelations March 16 In DC, March 8, 2017. Federal judge John Tunheim, former chair of the congressionally appointed Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), will speak March 16 at a unique Sunshine Week press conference organized by CAPA to focus on this year’s deadline for disclosure of secret records about President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination.

Experts Seek Compliance By Officials On JFK Records, March 10, 2017. Leading former government officials and other JFK experts are among those who have called for full release by the National Archives of still-classified records regarding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Speakers For March 16 CAPA Forum On JFK Records, March 11, 2017. To mark the 100th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s birth this spring, leaders in the JFK research community are convening at the National Press Club during “Sunshine Week” March 16.

CAPA Forum ‘JFK at 100’: ‘Cold Facts from Forensic Evidence’ Panel, March 21, 2017. Lawrence Schnapf, a New York-based attorney and co-chair of the CAPA legal committee, outlined the organization’s fall planning at CAPA’s forum March 16 at the National Press Club during his panel with AARC President James Lesar.

Judge Tunheim Recalls Oswald’s KGB File: ‘Five Feet Tall,’ March 21, 2017. The Soviet intelligence service developed a massive file on accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald that has never been public, according to the recollections of federal judge John Tunheim in his featured speech at a CAPA conference March 16 at the National Press Club.

At CAPA Forum, JFK Experts See Need, Momentum For Assassination Records Release, March 23, 2017. Federal Judge John Tunheim, former chair of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), headlined an expert faculty March 16 in the nation’s capital advocating for compliance with the JFK Assassination Records Act’s deadline of release of President Kennedy’s death records.

Transcript of Judge John Tunheim’s Remarks On JFK Records Release At CAPA March 16 Forum, CAPA staff, with transcript by William Kelly via JFKCountercoup, March 24, 2017. Former Assassination Records Review Board Chairman John Tunheim shared his unique expertise to headline a news conference and forum on March 16 during the news industry’s Sunshine Week at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) organized the event.

CAPA (www.capa-hq.com) organized the news conference (which attracted at least two White House reporters and three camera crews) and forum. The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) founded Sunshine Week to foster open government via events like this throughout the nation.

Pre-Event Announcements

National Press Club announcement
ASNE and RCFP Sunshine Week announcement

A Guide To JFK Assassination (Researched by Justice Integrity Project)

Highlights below from 36-part guide researched by CAPA board member Andrew Kreig and published by Justice Integrity Project

At right is a photo showing Dealey Plaza. The Texas Book Depository Building where Oswald worked is behind the row of trees. The car in the center lane is near the location of President Kennedy’s limo at the time of his fatal shooting. The view at bottom right is from behind a picket fence on the plaza’s grassy knoll, with a X in the highway showing the approximate location of the president’s limo at the time of the shot killing him.