2017
In the spring of 2017, CAPA launched a member news column to report newsworthy activities of CAPA members’ worldwide activities. Kindly send CAPA your news and help publicize that of other members by using CAPA social media buttons and other tools.
December
- Member David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., a defense witness in the CAPA-STCL mock trial in Houston from Nov. 16-17, reviewed the 2016 book of opposing advisor to the prosecution Robert A. Wagner in a long review being posted on several sites, including that on Amazon.com for the book: The Assassination Of JFK: Perspectives Half A Century Later. Dog Ear, 2016. “Wagner’s book left me almost breathless, as well as thoroughly mystified — for its naivety, for its somber witlessness, for its colossal logical flaws, and for its conspicuous omissions,” wrote Mantik (shown at right) in our excerpt here. “The author reports no original research, and he admits to no witness interviews.
Rather, he assumes that armchair speculation alone (a la Mycroft Holmes, but without the mental agility) is sufficient to unveil the Truth. For the most complex and bewildering case in history, that is truly guileless. The entire landscape in this case is everywhere littered with manipulated evidence, lost evidence, altered evidence, and misleading clues. If this rubbish dump goes unrecognized (as it does in Wagner’s book), accurate conclusions will remain forever locked inside one of Hawking’s black holes. Wagner has thus unintentionally offered an example nonpareil of precisely what won’t work in this case. In the interest of halting public deception, this book should be banned from the market — or else placed in the fiction section of the library, along with the Warren Report. I only wish I could be kinder, but I do believe in second chances. Perhaps Wagner wishes to re-study the case for a few years, with a little less gullibility, and write a more accurate book?”
November
- Many CAPA members spoke at the CAPA mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald in Houston and attended conferences timed for the 54th anniversary of President Kennedy’s death in 1963.
September
- Registration is now open for CAPA’s Mock Trial “State of Texas vs. Lee Harvey Oswald” co-sponsored by the South Texas College of Law / Houston from Nov. 16-17 at the law school’s campus. CAPA members receive discounts. Sign up at https://capa-us.org/feed for further updates. Register here!….On Oct. 18 in New Orleans, Judyth Vary Baker will discuss her forthcoming book Kennedy & Oswald at Barnes & Noble as part of a day-long series of events
“NOLA & Lee”: Lee Harvey Oswald’s Birthday Party. The press conference and rally at Lafayette Square, “Ground Zero” downtown tour of key locales, author event featuring Baker and Edward T. Haslam, author of Dr. Mary’s Monkey and editor of her first book, Me & Lee. The events conclude with an Oswald “Birthday Party” at Le Bon Temps Roule. The Oswald events announced in September were organized by Baker’s publisher, TrineDay Books, which has published many titles focused on the JFK assassination and several on its New Orleans ties.
August-July
- CAPA board and advisory members Bill Kelly, Andrew Kreig, John Newman and Alan Dale were among those CAPA members active with print and broadcast commentaries about the significance of the July 24 release by the National Archives of new documents pertaining to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. An Aug. 4 column excerpting major commentaries so far is: Newly Released JFK Murder Files Prompt Disputes, ‘Jigsaw Puzzle’ Solutions.
June
- On the Fourth of July, 2017, The Searchers — The Story of Researchers of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy — will be released worldwide on Amazon Video Direct and Vimeo On Demand. John Kelin, author of Praise From A Future Generation, called The Searchers, “An invaluable addition to a little-known but critically important story.” Ind
ependent film maker Randolph Benson, a CAPA member, directed and produced the documentary, created over the span of 14 years research. - Dr. James J. Kelleher, a California-based professor and the author in 2016 of He Was Expendable: National Security, Political and Bureaucratic Covers Ups-in the Murder of President John F. Kennedy, has undertaken a vital task for CAPA: updating our listings of JFK, MLK and RFK assassination books for our “Readers Guide” feature pointing to the major alternative and mainstream books and films in one location.
His first inputs came in June. Timely reporting and reviews of RFK and MLK books are expected to be especially valuable as the 50th anniversary news coverage of the RFK and MLK murders — and discrepancies in official accounts — ramps up for next year. Dr. Kelleher, left, received 
his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California Santa Barbara. He was Department Chair until his retirement at the College of the Canyons in Valencia California. He also taught at CSU Los Angeles, CSU Northridge, and CSU Dominguez Hills. He is a co-author of Governing California in the Twenty-First Century. - Glenda de Vaney, a stalwart in helping CAPA in a variety of important ways, published a letter to the San Diego Union Tribune praising a recent column on the JFK legacy. Also she published a positive review on Amazon.com of JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L. Fletcher Prouty (Author), Oliver Stone (Introduction),
Jesse Ventura (Foreword). Skyhorse Publishing, 2011 (originally published in 1996), with a review of 5.0 out of 5 stars (in keeping with the average of 4.5 out of 5 stars by more than 180 previous reviewers. Hers began: A must read for all Americans, “This book is a real eye-opener, written by someone who was in a position to know about his subject matter. As the liaison between the CIA and the pentagon, he had a front row seat to the operations of the government.” She included also a description of how Citizens Against Political Assassinations, open to the public, “is advocating for the release of all government records which, according to the JFK Act of 1992, are due to be released Oct. 26, 2017”; 
The Washington Post published a long and complimentary profile of Paul Kuntzler (shown at right), a retired publisher who has generously funded JFK assassination research through the decades and delivered many lectures on the topic raising public awareness; and
May
“JFK Vigil” organizer Karl Golovin, author of the recent OpEdNews column, Liberty Lives in the Light, led the semi-annual Peaceably Assemble for Truth: JFK to 9/11 on May 29, 2017 at the North Public Terrace/Plaza, the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St., NW, Washington, DC. Also, he encourage attendees to purchase tickets to the Kennedy Center’s official JFK Centennial Celebration that followed the vigil, and purchased 30 tickets to provide as gifts for the first 30 “JFK Vigil” participants who participated. He distributed also for free hundreds of “JFK Buttons” (shown in photo and of his own design) to participants of the vigil and attendees of the official JFK Centennial Celebration and other JFK-related events during the month.- A new member of our group, Dr. James Kelleher, published an opinion column in the 80,000-circulation Irish Echo entitled Release JFK Files. It noted that the National Archives located in College Park, Maryland is preparing to release some 3100 documents that have never been seen by the public, along with the full versions of nearly forty thousand redacted documents dealing with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. “However, it is expected that government agencies such as the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies will try to block the document release on national security grounds.””What are they hiding?” Kelleher’s piece asked. Citing the advocacy of CAPA, he urged, “People need to contact their local representatives and ask for their support in getting the documents released.”
