Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Ralph Reppert and JFK

Yes, people do read my blog entries.. believe it or not.


Usually, I get Chinese and Japanese responses from "Anonymous", and once I got a message from an Oriental reader saying that my blogs would be required reading in English language classes.   Sometimes, I get responses with embedded advertisements for the usual Viagra-type products.  However, I do read my anonymous comments and whenever I get an interesting one, my juices get moving. Such an interesting "Anonymous" response appeared in my email list yesterday.




In 2009, I published an entry in which I asked if anyone knew what happened to Baltimore Sun reporter, humorist and cartoonist, Ralph Reppert  "Do you remember Ralph?"  Yesterday, 5 years later, I got an answer, which I will duplicate below, in part.


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From the Wikipedia page on "Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK is a 1992 non-fiction book by Bonar Menninger."


"Donahue was encouraged in his investigations by Ralph Reppert, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. In 1977, Reppert published Donahue's theory {on the assassination of President Kennedy} in two articles, which appeared on Sunday, May 1 and the following Sunday, with the second article accompanied by an editorial.  These two men were keen to collaborate on a book on the subject, but this was cut short by Reppert's ill health and subsequent death..."


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Apparently, Mr. (Howard) Donahue's continued push for a book related to his theory, led to the book mentioned above by Mr. Manninger.  


With my interest piqued, I downloaded a sample of the book and found the first three chapters very well written.  So, I purchased the book from Amazon, and downloaded it to my Kindle and look forward to finishing it.




My ideas on the assassination at the time seemed to me logical and probably were triggered by
The Manchurian Candidate.



1. A SWAT team fired at the President, from several locations.
2. Oswald was a "loser" and not a marksman.
2. Oswald was just groomed to be the Fall Guy, and couldn't be allowed to talk.
3. Jack Ruby was an undercover CIA guy, planted in the Dallas underworld.


The Warren Commission (which included Gerald Ford, by the way) concluded that there was no conspiracy and Oswald was the sole shooter and "that was that."




The biggest problem with my own conjecture.. people don't keep secrets for 50 years.. unless all the conspirators  including the last person (like a Tontine) was dead. 




Anyway, as I read the book mentioned above, if anything jumps out at me, I will let you know.