The Coalition on Political Assassinations presents:
OPEN SECRETS: THE ASSASSINATIONS OF THE ‘60s
15th Annual Regional Conference, November 20-22, Dallas, TX
Latest evidence and research, authors, medical and ballistic experts, academics and researchers into modern political assassinations, including Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Resource room with books, DVDs and digital collections. Films and presentations. Join us.
Speakers:
(See below conference information for biographies of the speakers)
Dr. Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D., former president American Academy of Forensic Sciences
Jim Douglass, author of JFK and the Unspeakable
Walt Brown, author of Master Analytic Chronology: The Death of President Kennedy
Russ Baker, author of Family of Secrets
Ronnie Dugger, former editor of The Texas Observer
John Armstrong, author of Harvey & Lee will be available to sign his book
Randy Benson, award-winning filmmaker, showing excerpts from The Searchers
T Carter, author an upcoming book Jerry Ray: A Memoir of Injustice
Ben Rogers, curator of the Penn Jones collection at Baylor University's Poague Library
Jim DiEugenio, author of Destiny Betrayed and editor of Probe
Lisa Pease, co-author of The Assassinations and editor of Probe
Robert Groden, author of The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald and Absolute Proof
Doug Valentine, author of The Phoenix Program and The Strength of the Pack
Ed Haslam, author of Dr. Mary’s Monkey and Mary, Ferrie and the Money Virus
Pat Speer, producer of "The Mysterious Death of Number 35”
Chris Pike, researcher into Operation Northwoods and critic Penn Jones, Jr.
Schedule:
Friday, November 20
Early Bird Lunch, 12:00 pm Founder’s Grill, lobby, Hotel Lawrence (214) 761-9090
Dinner, 5:30 pm, Rodeo Grill, Adolphus Hotel, 1321 Commerce Street, (214) 651-3588
COPA keynote speaker, 7:00 pm, Mezzanine level, Adolphus Hotel
Movies, 10:00 pm, Second floor Rear, Hotel Lawrence, Houston & Jackson Sts.
Resource room open on 2nd floor rear Friday to Sunday, books and DVDs, authors
Saturday, November 21
Speakers 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, Second floor Rear, Hotel Lawrence
Movies 10:00 pm, Second floor Rear
Hotel Lawrence, Houston & Jackson Sts.
Sunday, November 22 46th anniversary
Speakers and discussions 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, Second floor Rear
Hotel Lawrence, Houston & Jackson Sts.
12:30 pm Moment of Silence
Commemorating the Assassination of President Kennedy
Grassy Knoll, Dealey Plaza, speakers following
Union Station and West End stations on DART rail. All events open to public.
Registration at door - $60 for all events, $25 Saturday, $20 Friday and Sunday
Coalition on Political Assassinations, PO Box 772, Washington, DC 20044
copa@starpower.net www.politicalassassinations.com
COPA Biographies, 2009
John Armstrong is an independent researcher and author of Harvey & Lee and co-author of Dead Witnesses. His main work outlines the evidence that there were two people using the name of Lee Harvey Oswald who are both linked to the Kennedy assassination. See http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200311/1068503919.html
Russ Baker is an investigative journalist and founder of the nonprofit reporting web site whowhatwhy.com. His heavily sourced and footnoted 2009 book, "Family of Secrets: the Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years," has several chapters with copious new material on the JFK assassination, focusing on the story behind George H.W. Bush's claim not to remember where he was Nov. 22, 1963. Gore Vidal calls it "one of the most important books of the past ten years." The
book website is www.familyofsecrets.com
Randy Benson is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the North Carolina School of the Arts’ School of Filmmaking, and is an adjunct professor of film and video at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. His films have garnered numerous awards, most notably the Oscar™ for Best Student Documentary at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Academy Awards™. Benson was invited to the Eastman Kodak "Emerging Filmmaker Showcase" at the Cannes International Film Festival where he was awarded an
Excellence in Filmmaking Award. He was also selected as one of fifteen directors worldwide to the First Appearance Program for New Directors at the International Documentary Film Festival - Amsterdam. His work has been featured on the Bravo Network, the Independent Film Channel (Split Screen), WTTW-Chicago,
UNC-TV (NC Visions), Canal Plus - France, Telewizja Polska S.A.- Poland and MTV-2. Production is wrapping on Benson's most recent documentary, The Searchers, a film profiling the assassination of John F. Kennedy. See http://www.rbensonfilm.com/Welcome.html
Walt Brown is the author of Master Analytic Chronology: The Death of President . Kennedy. This Chronology reports data from a handful of historical events prior, even, to the birth of John Kennedy. It was 2½ years in the making -- 5,800 pages -- 50,000 paragraphs -- 2.2 million words. Brown has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Notre Dame, and teaches history at Ramapo College in New Jersey. Brown, a former special agent of the Justice Department, is a longtime researcher of the Warren Commission and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is also the editor of JFK/Deep Politics and the author of several books on the subject including: The People V. Lee Harvey Oswald (1992), Treachery in Dallas (1995), Referenced Index Guide to the Warren Commission (1995), JFK Assassination Quizbook (1995) and the The Warren Omission (1996). Brown's most ambitious previous project was The Global Index to the JFK Assassination, a CD-ROM of 2400 pages, which indexed not just the WC, but also the HSCA, and 100+ of the best-known JFK books. There are 17,185 names and over 4 million references, and it is cross-referenced by 175 categories. See http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/
T Carter has played a key role in keeping COPA alive, and has been doing independent research into the JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinations for years now. She assisted John Armstrong in his research on Harvey and Lee and helped Lyndon Barsten research Truth at Last on Dr. King’s murder. She also worked closely with Judge Joe Brown and Dr.William Pepper, the lawyer for James Earl Ray and the King family. She is also the author an upcoming book Jerry Ray: A Memoir of Injustice
James DiEugenio is an independent researcher and author of Destiny Betrayed, a defense of Jim Garrison’s investigation into JFK’s murder. He was an editor of the research publication Probe, and co-author of The Assassinations, compiling some of the best of Probe's research, including a section on the Malcolm X assassination. Co-founder and chairman of the Citizens for Truth About the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA) Jim DiEugenio provided additional narrative content for the DVD release of Oliver Stone's film JFK. Recently, he has written a critique of Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History and worked to oppose the upcoming HBO special with Tom Hanks based on the book. See more at http://www.ctka.net/home.html
Jim Douglass is an author, his most recent work, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, was published in April 2008 by Orbis Books. From 1963 to 1965 Jim Douglass served as a theological adviser, on questions of nuclear war and conscientious objection, to Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council in Rome. He then taught theology at Bellarmine College, Louisville, Kentucky (1965), the University of Hawaii (1968-69, 71-72), and in the Program for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence at the University of Notre Dame (1969-70). In 1977 Jim and Shelley Douglass helped found Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action alongside the Trident submarine base near Seattle, Washington. Jim Douglass served a year and a half in jail for acts of civil disobedience at the Trident base. The Douglasses and Ground Zero developed an extended community in 250 towns and cities vigiling by the railroad tracks of Trident nuclear weapons shipments. In September 1989 the Douglasses moved to Birmingham, Alabama. From Birmingham Jim Douglass has taken part in a series of peacemaking journeys to the Middle East, including peace walks through Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan and five visits to Iraq. In 1993 the Douglasses founded Mary’s House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality in Birmingham for homeless families. Jim Douglass has also written four books on the theology of nonviolence: The Nonviolent Cross (Macmillan: 1968), Resistance and Contemplation (Doubleday: 1972), Lightning East to West (Crossroads: 1983), and The Nonviolent Coming of God (Orbis: 1991). All four books have been republished by Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon.
Ronnie Dugger, founding editor of The Texas Observer and co-founder of the Alliance for Democracy, has written biographies of Lyndon Johnson, The Politician and On Ronald Reagan, as well as other books, and hundreds of articles for Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Progressive and other periodicals. He is currently working on an article on the JFK assassination. See his work at http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/
Robert Groden is the author of JFK:The Case for Conspiracy, High Treason, The Killing of a President, The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK:Absolute Proof, and parts of Government By Gunplay. He has researched the photographic and medical evidence in the JFK assassination for 46 years. Groden released the Zapruder and many other films and the vast majority of the photographic evidence to the public through the years, including the color autopsy photographs. See http://www.jfkmurder.com/
Ed Haslam last spoke to COPA in 1994 (or was is 1995) shortly before the publication of his first book MARY, FERRIE & THE MONKEY VIRUS. In 2007 he expanded that investigation into a new book entitled DR. MARY'S MONKEY. Ed is from New Orleans and lived there during the JFK assassination and the Garrison Investigation. He is a graduate of Tulane University and later moved to Detroit where he spent most of his professional career managing advertising campaigns for some of the largest corporations in America, such as Chrysler Motors and Rockwell International. Today he lives in Florida. See http://trineday.com/paypal_store/product_pages/Dr_Mary.html
John Judge is an independent researcher, lecturer and author of Judge for Yourself. He was the co-founder of both the Committee for an Open Archives and the Coalition on Political Assassinations. He has studied all the major political assassinations of the last century and helped to draft both the JFK Assassination Records Act and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Records Act currently in Congress. Judge also co-founded 9/11 Research Project, the McGehee Intelligence Library, and is working to create a Museum of Hidden History in Washington, DC. See www.politicalassassinations.com and www.judgeforyourself.us
Pat Speer, whose background had been in the record industry, had the unusual distinction of being one of the few people ever to research the Kennedy assassination medical evidence full-time, from 2003 to 2006. This devotion, which entailed studying every bit of testimony regarding the evidence, and hundreds of articles on gunshot wounds and X-rays, led to a unique perspective on the medical aspects of the assassination. Mr. Speer continues to investigate the case, and make new discoveries, some of which will be revealed for the first time in his presentation at COPA. His perspective is explained in part in his online video series and DVD, The Mysterious Death of Number 35, as well as his ever-expanding online book at www.patspeer.com
Ben Rogers, curator of the Penn Jones collection, is Director of the W. R. Poage Legislative Library. He has been archivist at Baylor University for twenty years. The papers of Penn Jones, Jr. form the foundation for a growing collection of JFK materials including papers from Jack White, Gary Shaw and others. The archive provides a depository for personal JFK papers in a private institution. The collection contains over 800 newsletters and hundreds of magazines and newspapers. In addition to the Jones papers, all of the JFK correspondence of Jack White has been added in the last two years. Visit the web site for the collection: www.baylor.edu/lib/poage/jfk/
Lisa Pease is a longtime researcher of Cold War history. She published many articles on the assassination in Probe magazine, some of which are in her book, The Assassinations. She maintains the Real History Archives site at www.realhistoryarchives.com. Also see Probe articles at www.ctka.net and her Real History blog at http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/
Chris Pike has contributed materials to the JFK Materials Collection at Baylor University’s Poague Library. He is an independent researcher into early critic Penn Jones, Jr. and Operation Northwoods.
Doug Valentine is the author of five books. This new book, The Strength of the Pack, is an expose of the DEA. His previous book, The Strength of the Wolf (about the Federal Bureau of Narcotics), devotes a chapter to the possible drug trafficking aspects of the JFK assassination. In his second book, The Phoenix Program, Valentine revealed that members of a US Army military intelligence group may have taken photographs of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Valentine worked as an investigator for Dr William Pepper and testified in Memphis in 1999 at the King v Jowers trial. See http://www.douglasvalentine.com/
Dr. Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D. is a nationally renowned forensic pathologist, attorney and medical-legal consultant. Dr. Wecht received his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his law degree from the University of Maryland, and is also a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists and the American Society of Clinical Pathologists.
He has served as President of the American College of Legal Medicine, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.The author of more than 500 professional publications, Dr. Wecht is also an editorial board member of more than 20 national and international medical-legal and forensic scientific publications. He has performed approximately 14,000 autopsies and has supervised, reviewed or has been consulted on approximately 30,000 additional postmortem examinations. Dr. Wecht has frequently appeared on several nationally syndicated programs discussing various medicolegal and forensic scientific issues, including medical malpractice, drug abuse, the assassinations of both President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the death of Elvis Presley, the O.J. Simpson case, and the JonBenet Ramsey cases. His expertise has also been utilized in high profile cases involving Mary Jo Kopechne, Sunny von Bulow, Jean Harris, Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, the Waco Branch Davidian fire, and Vincent Foster. A comprehensive study of these cases are discussed from the perspective of Dr. Wecht's own professional involvement in his books, Cause of Death, Grave Secrets, and Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey? He also directs the The Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. See http://www.cyrilwecht.com/institute.php
