Noel Twyman obtained an
Engineering Degree from Stevens Institute of Technology and a Masters
Degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University.
Twyman became a successful
businessman but after his retirement he researched and wrote Bloody
Treason: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy (1997), a
book about the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy.
The book is based on documents released by the Assassination Records
Review Board and fresh analysis of the Abraham
Zapruder
film and the autopsy photographs.
Twyman also carried out in-depth interviews with important witnesses
including suspects such as Gerry Patrick
Hemming and Robert S McNamara.
Twyman concludes that a group of right-wing politicians and military
officers joined forces with gangsters and government officials to
murder Kennedy.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason (1998)
In May or June of
1963, he was offered a contract by Antoine Guerini, the Corsican crime
boss in Marseilles, to accept a contract to kill "a highly placed
American politician" whom Guerini called the "biggest vegetable"-
i.e., President Kennedy. The president was to be killed on US territory.
David told Rivele that he turned down the contract because it was
too dangerous. After David turned down the contract offer, he said
it was accepted by Lucien Sarti, another Corsican drug trafficker
and killer, and two other members of the Marseilles mob, whom he refused
to name. David said he learned what happened about two years after
the assassination in a meeting in Buenos Aires, during which Sarti,
another drug trafficker named Michele Nicoli, David, and two others
were present. During the meeting, the assassination of John F. Kennedy
was discussed. This is how the assassination was carried out as David
told it to Rivele.
About two weeks before
the assassination, Sarti flew from France to Mexico City, from where
he drove or was driven to the US border at Brownsville, Texas. Sarti
crossed at Brownsville where he was picked up by someone from the
Chicago mafia. This person drove him to a private house in Dallas.
He did not stay at a hotel, as not to leave records. David believes
that Sarti was traveling on an Italian passport. David said the assassins
cased Dealey Plaza, took photographs and worked out mathematically
how to set up a crossfire. Sarti wanted to fire from the triple underpass
bridge, but when he arrived in Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination,
there were people there, so he fired from a little hill next to the
bridge. There was a wooden fence on that hill, and Sarti fired from
behind the wooden fence. He said Sarti only fired once, and used an
explosive bullet. He said Kennedy was shot in a crossfire, two shots
from behind, and Sarti's shot from the front. Of the two assassins
behind, one was high, and one was low. He said you can't understand
the wounds if you don't realize that one gun was low, "almost
on the horizontal." The first shot was fired from behind and
hit Kennedy in the back. The second shot was fired from behind, and
hit "the other person in the car." The third shot was fired
from in front, and hit Kennedy in the head. The fourth shot was from
behind and missed "because the car was too far away." He
said that two shots were almost simultaneous.
David said that Kennedy
was killed for revenge and money. He said the CIA was incapable of
killing Kennedy, but did cover it up. He said the gunmen stayed at
the private house in Dallas for approximately two weeks following
the assassination, then believes they went to Canada, that there were
people in Canada who had the ability to fly them out of North America.
(2)
John
Kelin, review of Noel Twyman's book, Bloody Treason (1998)
The author is a retired
engineer, and approaches his subject with an engineer's thoroughness
(although he writes that he approaches the subject as a prosecutor
convinced of conspiracy). After an obligatory retelling of the events
in Dealey Plaza and the political climate of 1963, an exacting analysis
begins. Twyman quite reasonably envisions a power elite threatened
by JFK, and convinced it is powerful enough to both carry out the
assassination and cover it up. A long list of suspects, both groups
and individuals, is gradually narrowed down to just a handful of probable
conspirators...
Harvey has long been considered
a prime suspect in the case. And he certainly comes to mind when reading
the aforementioned chapter, "The Mastermind." In this fascinating
section, Twyman adopts the conspirator's point-of-view to "think
through a plot that conforms to all the known evidence and could have
been concocted by a logical mind." Twyman imagines this mastermind
addressing the assassination's sponsors and outlining a compartmentalized
plot that shields those at the top, and leaves a designated patsy,
a supposed lone nut, holding the bag.
When Twyman finally names
his real villains, we recognize three men whose involvement has been
alleged for years: Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, and H.L. Hunt.
The author says they acted from that oldest of motivations, self-preservation,
and that "they had the the power and the money to make it happen
and cover it up." It is amusing, in a sick sort of way, when
Twyman says that Hoover seems to be the one person involved who had
no redeeming qualities. "I have searched the literature and ...
if there was something likable about him I haven't found it."
One of the central premises
of Bloody Treason is that the Zapruder film was altered by members
of the cabal that murdered President Kennedy, as part of an effort
to at least partly conceal the plot and the plotters. This notion
has gained increasing credibility in recent years, but I must concede
it is an idea that part of me wants to reject outright, because I
just don't get it. The Zapruder film as it has been known since the
1970s is convincing evidence of a front shooter and thus a conspiracy.
To dwell on alleged alteration strikes me as counterproductive, missing
the forest for the trees.
As I understand the overall
argument, frames were deleted from the film in order to hide evidence
that Kennedy was shot from the front, which of course would destroy
the lone nut scenario. The original film was seized by the conspirators
and altered using what was, in 1963, sophisticated yet rather commonplace
equipment. Traces of the forgery inevitably remained, but were not
ferreted out for many years.
There are undeniable problems
in the film, such as whether the Presidential limousine came to a
stop during the fusillade. In the conventional Z-film it plainly does
not, but numerous eyewitnesses gave sworn testimony that it did, or
at least that it slowed down (also not observed).
Another issue that Twyman
focuses on is the speed with which limousine driver William Greer
turns his head at two points in the shooting sequence. According to
Twyman, the speed of this head turn is a physical impossibility, and
further proof that key frames were deleted from the film. There are
filmed recreations of the head turn (no subject could do it the way
Greer supposedly did) and discussions of calculations intended to
show it couldn't be done.
These may be Twyman's most
powerful demonstrations. But at this stage I am still sitting on the
fence on the question of film alteration. Suffice it to say that proving
the allegation the Zapruder film was tampered with is not a simple
task. Respected researchers have staked claims on both sides of the
question; this is not an issue that will be resolved any time soon
- if ever.
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