Copyright: Wim Dankbaar 2003
Kennedy murder solved?
An interview with Wim Dankbaar
Wim Dankbaar, a dutch enterpreneur (41), financed a private investigation into the murder of the 35 th president of the United States of America. The results will be shown in a TV documentary. The investigation was conducted by retired FBI agents, led by Zack Shelton, a 28 year career FBI agent. They have recently submitted their investigative report to Attorrney General John Ashcroft with the request to reopen the case. What we wanted to learn from Mr. Dankbaar is how these conclusions differ from the many conspiracy theories circulating about this case.
How did you get involved in all of this?
I have an interest in this case since 1988. It started with a british documentary airing on dutch television, where I saw a filmfragment of Jack Ruby saying to the press that powerful people were behind this murder, and that they would do anything not to let the truth come to the surface. He clearly hinted that he had been forced to kill Lee Harvey Oswald. I had never seen this footage and I found it remarkable to see one of the main players confirm on camera that there was much more to it. Do you know the fragment I’m talking about?
No , I never saw it.
I thought so. I was rather fascinated by it, because untill then I had always assumed that America was the ultimate example of freedom and democracy and like many others, I would never have thought a coup d’ etat could occur in that country. But that was exactly what Ruby tried to hint at. Then you start to read books and look in depth into the case. Over the years this went with waves of intensity. I think I went through a similar process as Jim Garrison and other researchers.
Please explain who Jim Garrisson was.
Jim Garrison
Oh yes, he was the district attorney of New Orleans. He is portrayed by Kevin Costner in the movie JFK. When you start to study the evidence you quickly find the official conclusion is a total fraud. The lies that have been told are insulting your intelligence. From one astonishment into the next. No one of course is going to read all 26 volumes of the Warren Report. That’s exactly what Allen Dulles said. He was the former CIA director who was fired by Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Then he is appointed by Johnson for the Warren Commission. I mean, how can you have a man who hated Kennedy, investigate his murder? That whole commission was full of Kennedy haters. Anyway, those who closely looked at the evidence would quickly find the Warren Report is all baloney. But in those days the words of these honorable men were sacred. The views of the government were hardly questioned.
Allen Dulles
Ok, but how did you get in touch with the people who are now your partners?
Two years ago I accidently discovered their website. The core of the story was the confession of a man who claimed to have fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll. I started to read with extreme skepsis, but I discovered that this man had many details, which by the way fitted exactly with what I had learned over the years and deemed plausible. His name is James Files and he is serving a jail term for attempted murder on a policeman.
I was rather amazed that I didn’t know his name , the more so because he had made his confession as long ago as 1994, and I was told the website had been up since 1995. When I entered the name James Files on the Internet, I found that 9 out of 10 articles tried to make it clear his story was totally incredible. I then set out to closely investigate all these criticisms and I came to the conclusion they were all superficial and didn’t hold water.
Can you name an example?
Yeah sure! For example they said that the weapon Files claimed to have used, was more a pistol than a rifle and would have an enormous recoil. They said it “kicks like a mule”. Therefore Files could never have seen what he said he had witnessed through the scope of his weapon. The first thing I did was sending an email to the one of the gunshops I found on the Internet. I just acted as a potential customer and asked whether the Remington Fireball was a pleasant weapon. That man started advertising the weapon immediately. One of the most sophisticated guns ever made etcetera. When I inquired about the recoil, he said it was nice and steady. Ultimately I told him why I asked. He was quite amused and said that the alleged murder weapon of Lee Harvey Oswald had a lot more recoil. He even added that whoever said that the Fireball had big recoil, had a lot to learn about firearms.
I see, so you checked a lot of all the criticism?
Yes, all of it and it just didn’t hold ground. So I got intrigued more and more by the confession of James Files.
What else did you check?
Much more, there was more than enough skepsis. Another statement was that Files would never have had the time to do all the things he said he did.
He states that he has bitten the shell casing after the shot and left it there on the on the picket fence on the grassy knoll. Then he put the weapon back in his briefcase and turned his jacket inside, put it on and walked away. All the critics shout he would never had the time to do all that, because all the bystanders stormed to the knoll right after the shots, since that is where most bystanders had heard the shots coming from.
Yes, that’s what I have always heard too.
It’s because the conspiracy theorists are eager to point out that a shot came from from the grassy knoll, in front of the president. They are right and that’s why they say everyone ran towards the grassy knoll. That is true, but not immediately. Files says that everyone stood frozen and stunned and even the policemen looked as they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
I was quickly able to determine that Files was right. In one of my photobooks there’s a picture of the grassy knoll with the press bus in front of it. No soul on the knoll yet. This was the last vehicle in the motorcade, so it must have taken at least 30 seconds for the bus to reach that point. The president’s limousine had almost come to a stop and the press bus still take a sharp turn of 120 degrees.
The grassy knoll 27 seconds after the shots
What did you do next?
I called Bob Vernon, he is the man behind the website. In subsequent conversations he gave me more and more background information. I asked him why this information had not been published to the world yet. He told me that he had been dealing with major television networks on two separate occasions. On the last occasion, they were in full swing already for weeks, up to the editing in their studios. He showed me selections of all that footage. What I saw, was professionally made with typical american newscasters etcetera. It was obvious that money had not been an issue.
But both projects were suddenly canceled from the very top. He explained to me it had everything to do with interference by the CIA. I won’t bother you with the details, but it made me realize that the only way to get this done is to make a production with independent money. That’s how I ended up being the investor for this project.
The film is called “JFK, the Proof”. What are the conclusions? What do we get to see?
I wish I could answer that in just one sentence. The first thing people want to know is: Who fired the shots and who were behind it? It can’t be answered in two seconds. If you want to hear who did it as quickly as possible, my answer would be: A combination of CIA, Mafia, Texan oil-millionaires, anti Castroites and high officials in the military and government. In effect, of all the different theories on who was behind it, our answer is: “All of the above”, excluding the KGB and Castro. Those are disinfo stories, tossed in there by the CIA on purpose.
All those groups together? That does not sound very credible!
That I cannot help. It’s not my fault that the public does not know that all these groups worked tightly together and were in fact sides of the same cube. But it is so clear. Everything roots back to the Bay of Pigs. All those groups worked in paramount on that and they all had a common interest to get Cuba back.
What about concrete persons?
Well, our investigation identifies 4 shooters, two of them are still alive. The other two have been murdered in the seventies. They are proven and documented hitmen who worked both for the CIA and the Chicago mafia family. Their names are James Files, Charles Nicoletti, John Roselli en Marshall Caifano. Their boss was the legendary Sam Giancana, the head of organised crime in Chicago. Moreover, we have two other participants on camera involved in the planning of the murder. They both support and corroborate the confession of James Files.
Sam GiancanaJohnny Roselli
Who are they?
The other participants are Chauncey Holt and Tosh Plumlee. Both CIA contract operatives. Tosh Plumlee was a pilot and one of Chauncey Holt’s specialties was counterfeiting and forgery of documents. Tosh Plumlee is still alive, Chauncey died a few years ago, but we have their testimonies on film. Chauncey also worked for mafiabosses like Pete Licavoli, the boss of Cleveland, and Meyer Lansky. Holt was one of the so called “three tramps”. Three shabby dressed men who were arrested on Dealey Plaza. Photographers have taken 7 pictures of them. These men have always been the subject of intense and wild speculation. We show convincly who they were: Chauncey Holt, Charles Rogers and Charles Harrelson. Charles Harrelson is a well known contract killer as well as the father of Woody Harrelson.
Chauncey Holt Charles Harrelson
The actor of Cheers?
Yes, he’s now serving a life-time jail term for killing a judge.
Gee, that sounds interesting, but how do I know all this is the definite truth and not just a well planned fantasy story?
You’re going too fast. I already said this is not a painting of a few strokes. First, this is not the final and full truth. The Kennedy Assassination is a big jigsaw puzzle. We have placed many pieces, but we don’t claim to have all of them. For example, it is clear that there were more hitteams on Dealey Plaza, and we have only one. Possibly the three tramps were another hitteam, but we cannot determine whether Rogers and Harrelson were shooters. But even if so, there were also gunmen in the Texas Schoolbook Depository and we do not know who they were for sure. We have indications, but we will stay away from unsubstantiated or inconclusive evidence. Our motto is: We offer no conjecture or theory, only hard evidence.
How do you convince someone this is not a nice scam?
Yes, I’ll get to that. What you have to look at first is the people who conduct this investigation. Zack Shelton is a name you won’t know but he worked 28 years for the FBI. He spent most of his career on the Organised Crime Task Forces of Chicago and Kansas city. So he knows all these mob figures and put several of them behind bars. The movie Casino with Robert de Niro for example, is based on a true story and Zack has busted some of those characters. Do you remember the James Byrd dragging death, where three white guys dragged the colored guy to death behind a car?
Zack Shelton
Yes, did they not get the death penalty?
Yes, Bush did that when he was still Governor of Texas, but that case was Zack’s too. We are talking about someone with a sparkling background and impecable career in law enforcement, who is unlikley to risk his good name with a “scam”. But it gets better still: Zack has called upon and received help of over a dozen of his former FBI collegues and they are certainly not rookies. Jim Wagner was head of the Organised Crime Task Force in Chicago, Art Pzifenmayer had the same job in San Diego, he is now CEO of a big casino. Michael Wacks was the undercover agent who busted Carlos Marcello. Much like they did John Gotti, with an undercover surveillance sting. Carlos Marcello was the mafiaboss of New Orleans, one of the most powerful ever. Michael’s brother, Peter Wacks, led an investigation into the illegal activities of Jimmy Hoffa and his Teamster’s pension fund. He was also awarded as the FBI’s “best street agent”. Well, I can go on like this, I am not yet halfway and the number of agents helping Zack is still growing. So everyone who wants to accuse us of a scam accuses these people also. Every single one of them worked 20 years or more for the FBI. O wait, I forgot to mention James W. Sibert. He was a World War II hero, a bomber pilot who did many raids over Germany. He received sevaral awards for courage and spent 21 years in the FBI thereafter. As a special agent he was present at Kennedy’s authopsy. Thank God he’s still alive, he’s 84 now, but he tells crystal clear, for the first time on camera, how Gerald Ford and Arlen Specter have tampered with the evidence. Arlen Specter is the artist who fabricated the infamous “single bullet theory”. He is now a senator for Pensylvania. Ford and Specter are two surviving men who sat on the Warren Commission. They both have written books in an attempt to confirm the lie about Lee Harvey Oswald.
Ford wrote “Portait of an Assassin” and Specter “Passion for Truth”. It’s just disgusting!
Gerald FordArlen Specter
Your talking about some inportant people here!
I don’t care. Hitler was important too. Should I therefore deny he was bad? “If you do the crime, you do the time”. And even that, they didn’t do. I have befriended the ex-girl friend of Oswald and know exactly what kind of man he really was. He was a CIA spy, a patriot, who has been used and discarded like trash. They duped him by telling him to infiltrate the plot and prevent the assassination. Very clever actually, if you think about it. It’s the only way to get your patsy at the right place at the right time. And Lee thought he could sabotage the hit, right till the end. That’s when he fully realized he had been duped. The truth is he was a real hero. And those crooks keep pounding their lies untill this very day. They know better of course. Yep, it makes me angry. If you repeat a lie over and over, the public will swallow it, especially if it’s told by people of authority.
OK, so the investigators are men of professional background, but that’s still no guarantee they found the truth!
No that is correct, but I had not finished yet. You asked if it could be a scam? Then you first have to know that the original lead on James Files came from the FBI. Not from a tabloid reporter or something. The tip was given to Joe West, a private investigator, who was working on a lawsuit to exhume JFK’s body. He wanted to prove that Kennedy was hit from the front. That already indicates that Joe was sincere. A new and independent autopsy would prove sure as hell that the first was a total fraud.
But Joe West has never heard a full confession from James Files. Files didn’t want to talk. Only if Joe could arrange immunity for him, he would think about it. During that time Joe had to go in hospital for heart surgery. The operation itself was a big success, right after he was straight up in bed again, drinking a coke and talking your ears off. Then out of nowhere a complication arose, he went into a coma and never came out of it. With his death, his exhumation suit also died. We all think Joe was murderded by an overdose of the wrong medication. I’ll spare you the details, but the attending doctor is still to be found for example. Joe’s death is one of three reasons why James Files decided to tell his story to Bob Vernon, who took over from Joe.
What were the other two reasons?
Save it for later, I first need to finish this. James Files finally confessed to Vernon. Files says he acted on orders of his mentor Charles Nicoletti. Nicoletti was one of Giancana’s most trusted hitmen. Files was the driver and bodyguard for Nicoletti. Six months before the assassination Nicoletti informed Files about the contract on Kennedy and that he and Johnny Roselli were to take part in it. Originally Files was only ordered to drive the weapons to Dallas, testfire them and explore the area. All orders came from Sam Giancana and the CIA. Files had been recruited for the CIA by David Atlee Phillips. This man was a spider in the web on the part of the CIA for the planning of the hit. His name pops up in almost every covert CIA operation, including the coup in Chile that left Allende dead and brought Pinochet to power. Phillips was also the CIA handler of Lee Harvey Oswald. His star rose to CIA director of covert operations for the Western Hemisphere.