Talk:Trial of Clay Shaw

message: I just wrote this article based on my known resources.  There may be a bias in the article, although, I have tried my best to remain neutral.  Please add any verfiable information that will add balance where I am not neutral. Ramsquire 18:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV Issues

message: Over the next few days, I will try to add cites to all the information in this article.  Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.  Also, any photos will likewise be appreciated. Ramsquire 18:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, the formatting is a little different than standard Wikipedia articles--just a suggestion, if you have the time to do it. Wikipediarules2221 22:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I used the O.J. Simpson murder case as a template to begin this article, but I do plan, once I get all the citation in order, to see how other trial articles have been handled to bring it in line with how similar articles have been done. Ramsquire 22:51, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: Overall the article is pretty good. Even Garrison proponents like myself will admit the case really fell apart.
Yes the case fell apart. However, there is a lot of evidence that the case was being sabotaged by the CIA and the FBI with help from CIA and FBI assets in the mainstream media.Mtracy9 (talk) 11:46, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No it's not.  Again actually read the article and it's citation.  It's FN 13, and it is sourced to a reliable secondary source, as appropriate under WP:RS. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 19:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Why, because you wish it to be so?  Again WP:V, and WP:RS applies. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 19:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Again read the article, that's what is said, and the names of prominent researchers are added. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 19:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Again, WP:V and WP:RS. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 19:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

text: From WP:OR-- Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable published secondary sources. This means that we present verifiable accounts of views and arguments of reliable scholars, and not interpretations of primary source material by Wikipedians. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 19:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Revisions

message: I removed the follwing sentence from the article because of BLP concerns: (Note: Journalist James Phelan's objectivity has been questioned. Documents, released under the JFK Act of 1992, reveal that Phelan was informing to the FBI and giving them records of his interviews with Garrison in early 1967.)James Phelan by Jim DiEugenio
My reasoning is that I believe Phelan is alive, and that he would dispute these so called records.  So I'm asking other editors (I'll be researching as well) to find a better source than DiEugenio for the proposition that Phelan was an FBI informant, or Phelan's reaction to the charge.  Ramsquire (throw me a line) 16:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probe magazine is a reliable source, unlike the John McAdams JFK disinformation site.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtracy9 (talk • contribs) 08:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Attacking one source doesn't establish the reliability of another. Gamaliel (Angry Mastodon! Run!) 17:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Please try to stay on topic. And please sign your posts, which you can do by adding four tildes (~) to the end of your post.  Thank you. Gamaliel (Angry Mastodon! Run!) 00:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, your the one who seems to have gotten off topic. What reason do you have for thinking that Probe magazine is not a reliable source. Have you read any of the Probe magazine articles? Many of them are available for free on the "Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination" website: http://www.ctka.net/fullarticles.htmlMtracy9 (talk) 12:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How is this off topic? It seems to be exactly what the topic is, since Ramsquire removed the material and started this section because he had concerns about the source you used. It doesn't matter what I think about the Probe articles, what matters is if they qualify as reliable sources by Wikipedia standards, especially since they concern a living individual.  Have a look at the Wikipedia policies linked to in the previous sentence and let us know if you have any questions. Thank you for signing your post. Gamaliel (Angry Mastodon! Run!) 16:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: After doing a little web research on this topic, my position is that unless I see something from the AP, NY Times, or any source on that level, I think the sentence violates WP:BLP, and should not be placed in the article. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 18:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Please see WP:BLP before making a general attack against the McAdams website. If you see situations where McAdams is being used in reference to a living person, and there are no third party sources available, bring it to my attention.  It should not be used in that matter.  Otherwise please note: Self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs should never be used as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article (see below). Ramsquire (throw me a line) 19:15, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Phelan

message: The final paragraph contains an accusation that the CIA actively torpedoed Garrison's investigation.  This is a claim first hatched by Garrison to explain the shoddyness of his case.  There is no mainstream reliable source to support the accusation.  The editor is using an interview in Probe magazine (which is likely an unreliable source per this), and has no corroboration of what these documents are, or whether they actually existed.  Secondly, this accusation "that the CIA destroyed Garrison case" is an extraordinary claim in that it accuses a government agency of committing a crime.  Under WP:FRINGE extensive sourcing is required to make such a claim on Wikipedia.  The use of other crimes committed by the agency is irrelevant to the question of whether this accusation of criminal behavior should be included.  In sum, is this claim verfiable?  The answer is no.  The Fonzi book repeating the allegation is insufficient corroboration for this claim. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 19:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: NO

message: The first advocate of the NO position states that Probe magazine "is likely an unreliable source." However, he provides no evidence that this is the case. He also ignores the fact that the two people claiming CIA interference, Robert Tanenbaum and Gaeton Fonzi, were investigators for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations and had access to CIA documents. Moreover, one of these House investigators, Gaeton Fonzi makes this claim not in Probe magazine, but in his own book, The Last Investigation. Fonzi thus validates the claim of CIA interference made by House investigator Robert Tanenbaum in the Probe magazine interview. The following is the relevant part of the interview:
: Probe:  You've said that you've actually seen a CIA document that says they were monitoring and harassing Jim Garrison's witnesses.
: Robert Tanenbaum:  Right. We had that information. I was shocked to read that because I remember discounting everything Garrison had said. I had a negative point of view about Garrison based upon all the reportage that had gone on. And then I read all this material that had come out of [former CIA Director Richard] Helm's office, that in fact what Garrison had said was true. They were harassing his witnesses, they were intimidating his witnesses.
Moreover, there is no consensus of opinion on Jim Garrison and his investigation into JFK's murder. Indeed, the article on Jim Garrison in Wikipedia itself states: "Opinions differ as to whether he [Garrison] uncovered a conspiracy behind the John F. Kennedy assassination but was blocked from successful prosecution by federal government cover up, whether he bungled his chance to uncover a conspiracy, or whether the entire case was an unproductive waste of resources." Thus Tanenbaum's and Fonzi's assertion that CIA personnel interfered in Garrison's investigation does not constitute a FRINGE THEORY, nor does their accusing CIA personnel of engaging in illegal activities constitute an "extraordinary claim." CIA personnel have been documented engaging in illegal activates. Examples include: 1) Operation CHAOS, an illegal disruption of domestic protest groups that included mail openings, and 2) Project MK-ULTRA, which as Senator Edward Kennedy described it, involved "...an 'extensive testing and experimentation' program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens 'at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign.' Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to 'unwitting subjects in social situations.' At least one death, that of Dr. [Frank] Olson, resulted from these activities."Mtracy9 (talk) 04:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: YES

message: For the record, WP:FRINGE covers theories which are extraordinary or outside the mainstream.  Since the prevailing consensus in mainstream sources is that Garrision's investigation was flawed and baseless, to claim that the CIA sabotaged it, is indeed outside the mainstream, and WP:FRINGE is an appropriate guideline. Ramsquire (throw me a line) 18:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: :File:Ciravolo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 13:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for File:Ciravolo.jpg

message: See: image description page
Mtracy9 (talk) 20:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale provided for File:Ciravolo.jpg

message: Wikipedia Rules Regarding Verifiability and Reliable Source
:The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth: whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.
:Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published (made available to the public in some form); unpublished materials are not considered reliable.
Based on the above Wikipedia standards, I would argue that Jim Marrs’ book “Crossfire” easily meets WP:RS. Consider the following excerpt from Wikipedia’s own biography on Jim Marrs:
:A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Marrs earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of North Texas in 1966 and attended Graduate School at Texas Tech in Lubbock for two years more. He has worked for several Texas newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where, beginning in 1968, he served as police reporter and general assignments reporter covering stories locally, in Europe, and in the Middle East. After a leave of absence to serve with a Fourth Army intelligence unit during the Vietnam War, he became military and aerospace writer for the newspaper and an investigative reporter.
:Since 1976, Marrs has taught a course on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy at the University of Texas at Arlington.[2] In 1989, his book, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, was published and reached the New York Times Paperback Non-Fiction Best Seller list in mid-February 1992. Marrs has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, The Discovery Channel, TLC, The History Channel, This Morning America, Geraldo, The Montel Williams Show, Today, TechTV, Larry King (with George Noory), and Art Bell radio programs, as well as numerous national and regional radio and TV shows.
BrandonTR (talk) 04:59, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment/suggestion: Looking at what BrandonTR was sourcing to Marrs book, it looks to me like for most of it Marrs was a tertiary source, and references closer to the original source could probably be substituted for much of it to better effect. (For example, an article in a contemporary local newspaper is better sourced to the original article itself; as to what Garrison suspected, perhaps Garrison wrote about that himself in one of his books or interviews and his own words could be quoted.)  -- Infrogmation (talk) 16:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, excellent suggestion. Gamaliel (talk) 02:25, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Rationale for Including Jim Marrs’ Book “Crossfire” as a Reliable Source

message: I've reworked the "background" section to streamline it and remove what I felt was unnecessary detail.  In general conciseness and clarity are preferable over completion.  That part of the article seemed, to me, to be overly wordy and to read very clunkily.  For example, in the opening paragraph there was a sentence saying that an ambulance came and took Jack Martin away after being pistol whipped by Bannister.  That's unneeded detail.  We can assume that Martin sought medical attention after getting the crap beat out of him. The only reason to include a sentence like that is if the arrival of the ambulance was somehow significant.  Another issue is that you generally shouldn't use two sentences when one will do.  There seemed to be unnecessary detail in here as well such as several sentences about Ferry's claims to have been researching a business and rebuttals to those claims.  That seems like too much detail for an encyclopedia article such as this.  What we need to know is that Ferry claimed that trip to Dallas was research for a business venture.  Many of the conflicting claims were also presented fairly clumsily.  In addition, there was a tendency to quote just for the sake of quoting.  Yes, I know some folks are obsessive about the JFK murder and are fascinated with the minutiae of it but we don't need, for example, an extended sentence on David Ferry's supposed phone call to Lou Ivon.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by LetMeLogIn (talk • contribs) 23:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Revision

message: At two points the article refers to "Clem Bertrand" whereas most of the time it is 
"Clay Bertrand".  Is "Clem" historically accurate?  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Russo called him Clem Bertrand . Location (talk) 03:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: To be more exact, Russo testified that he was introduced to a distinguished looking man at David Ferrie's house. Russo said that Ferrie introduced the man as 'Clem Bertrand'. Russo identified the defendant Clay Shaw as that man. The state tried to prove with the testimony of other witnesses that 'Clem Bertrand' and 'Clay Bertrand' were aliases used by Clay Shaw. Akld guy (talk) 11:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clem Bertrand? 

message: These sections should not again become an exhaustive list of every fringe publication.  The two authors I removed are pretty fringe, sorry. Gamaliel (talk) 20:48, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the above edit: I'm not sure how to tell which are more fringe than others, but I'm OK either way since neither were self-published. A good argument could be made for Crossfire in that it appears to have been #5 on the New York Times non-fiction paperback bestseller list and received a fair amount of coverage in connection with Oliver Stone's film. Wikipedia:Further reading is the closest thing to a guideline on this. Location (talk) 00:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: My thinking is along the lines of this sentence from that guideline you linked to: "Editors most frequently choose high-quality reliable sources."  Crossfire may have been widely-purchased and have some notoriety, but no one can make a serious case for its or Marrs' reliability in a scholarly sense. It would be like putting an Ann Coulter book in a further reading section of a political article.  Gamaliel (talk) 18:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL! Good point! -Location (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

text: Stick to the subject. If you have problems with a particular editor, take it to the editor's talk page or WP:ANI. If you have problems with the content of another article, take it to the relevant talk page. The section already has 10 references, 8 or 9 of which, including Garrison's own works, are supportive of Garrison; and one of those (i.e. Davy) has a forward by James DiEugenio. The "Further reading" section cannot take every work written about a subject, so make your case why this one should be included and not one of the others. Location (talk) 16:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

text: Wow.  You managed to use all those words and somehow didn't address the issue of the book list at all.  Good job. Gamaliel (talk) 17:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further reading 

message: The article uses the word "however" a bit too much, I think. Is there a skilled editor in the house to make the article somewhat better readable?Jeff5102 (talk) 10:53, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. - Location (talk) 23:13, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  However... 

message: I have proposed that List of people involved in the trial of Clay Shaw merge here. Please discuss whether you support or oppose this proposal. - Location (talk) 17:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge

message: I am deleting one cited sentence from the article:
:::By the mid-1970s, 150,000 Americans (businessmen, and journalists, etc.) had provided such information to the DCS.
Even though cited, I think it is sort of unnecessary fact here. The statement shades positive light on Clay Shaw, thus making the wikipedia article biased. —usernamekiran (talk) 13:17, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Removing the context for how commonplace Shaw's actions were (which was the part of the point of that section of the original source) makes it appear as though Garrison and other CTs were right to believe that Shaw was a spook or had nefarious relations with spooks. My opinion is that the removal of the statement unduly casts a shadow on his actions and affiliation with the CIA. - Location (talk) 02:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  erm...  he had obtained "5 agency" clearance. He had prettty prettty good relations with CIA. —usernamekiran[talk] 03:41, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: So why not balance that - whatever it means - by showing how many other Americans - including his boss - helped the CIA, too? (By the way, did you really create QKENCHANT on a primary source and a conspiracy source?!) -Location (talk) 03:56, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wouldnt be that difficult? Maintaining the balance? I cant even imagine how Shaw got that 5 agency clearance if he was only DCS. He must have been a lot more than that. Yup, thats the notorious me lol. I also created John J. Hicks. I was part of of this too.  —usernamekiran[talk] 04:09, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting one sentence 

message: https://c2cjournal.ca/2021/04/not-so-beautiful-minds-conspiracy-theories-from-jfk-to-oliver-stone-and-donald-trump/ -Location (talk) 17:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: For future reference