A HISTORY OF WITNESS HARRASSMENT
--Dr. Howard Platzman supplied the backbone for this summary--
Beginning in late in 1999, John McAdams and his team systematically distorted Judyth Baker’s story , typically focusing on largely trivial flaws in the witness’ long and complex narrative of events that occurred decades earlier. The witness was attacked by the McAdams team before the team knew how to correctly spell her name. Under the guise of ‘doing research’ the team has moved from gross accusations to focus on trivial objections.
As one accusation after another has been proven false (with a few minor exceptions, and with most such exceptions due to misinterpretations of evidence or of Baker’s statements, by others) big questions were replaced by smaller and smaller ones, so that by 2010, Team McAdams was attacking the witness based on the examination of minutia.
Originally, Baker’s broad statements were attacked. Typical of such attacks was an early statement made by John McAdams’ ‘correcting’ Baker, for saying she did cancer research with Dr. Mary Sherman: “Dr. Sherman was not a cancer researcher. She was an orthopedic surgeon” he told his newsgroup. Later, he said he consulted a biologist at Marquette University, a Jesuit-sponsored university where McAdams is a professor, and was told that cancer could not be induced in mice -- an egregious lie. Mice have been given cancer for many decades. As for Sherman, she was a world-wide recognized cancer research expert, described as such by the Wall Street Journal upon her ghastly July 21, 1964 murder.
In 2007, researcher Edward T. Haslam verified that Dr. Sherman's stature in cancer research was impressive.
David Lifton, whose book on Oswald was about to be published in 1999, but which was canceled after Baker (not mentioned in his book) spoke out, seems never to have forgiven her. In 2000, Lifton gave Team McAdams statements based on misinterpretations, though Baker had obtained his promise that all her statements to him would be confidential, since Sixty Minutes investigators were working on her story. Nonetheless, Lifton published mocking summaries of his interview with her anyway. Soon the report was spread that Baker ‘said’ she was doing cancer research at Reily Coffee Company – never true.
In this way, Baker was made to look suspicious, her character was assaulted, her reputation smeared, and her entire story trivialized on large, libelous websites the team put together (largely by by John McAdams, with statements, essays and sites supporting Mcadams published by Dave Reitzes, Dave Perry, David vion Pein, etc., with eventual support from David Blackburst [Stephen Roy]).
All these persons actively support the official story that Oswald killed President Kennedy on the Internet. Discrediting Oswald’s lover has, thus, been an important activity, made more difficult since her book ME & LEE : How i came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald, with a Foreword by Edward T. Haslam and an Afterword by Jim Marrs, was published by Trine Day in 2010. Statements that the book was "self published because no publisher would touch it" and "She did not write the book herself" soon followed.
Only a few of the typical attacks against Baker by Team McAdams at the onset are shown here, to give the reader an understanding of how the general JFK research community was influenced to judge Baker without looking into the matter any further. After a few years, mocking posts by Barb Junkkarenin, a member of McAdams' newsgroup, appeared, though once again, this member of McAdams' team never contacted Baker directly, in her purported “research.” Since 2005, Junkkarenin has searched for evidence that Baker is lying, even after she discovered evidence that Baker had continued cancer research projects after high school, which McAdams' team had said been a lie.
Below are typical attacks by Team McAdams (and an occasional outsider from the newsgroup) that illustrate thir efforts to discredit Baker:
TEAM McADAMS:
Oct. 21, 2000: a typical distortion : “The Fatal Flaw in Judyth Baker’s Story”
“For starters there never was and is no biological weapon that can
induce lung cancer. So, if Judyth says she helped develop one at Reilly - her story is fatally flawed.” Jerry McNally (Team McAdams)
Since Baker first spoke out in 1999, many instances of biological weapons created during the Cold War have been uncovered.
Baker reported how the (right-wing connected) scientists and chemists at her lab seemed to have an unwarranted interest in JFK’s Dallas trip and kept the [overhead] TV set on after lunch; when the assassination was announced, they sat there on stools and watched, and were pleased that Kennedy was going to die. They did not do any more lab work for the day. This was deliberately twisted:
Tracy Parnell praises Lifton for his post denigrating Baker:
Thanks for a great post David. Given all the people that had "foreknowledge" of the assassination, it's a wonder they didn't sell tickets!
>W. Tracy Parnell
Well, she did set up chairs around the TV for her friends viewing pleasure but I don't think she sold tickets.
JGL [John Leyden}
Robert Harris added:
What comes next Martin, JFK was shot from a UFO??
Great god Martin, what would you do if some kind of evidence came along that actually supported her claims??
Robert Harris
SEPTEMBER 28: Typical Attacks Used to Discredit Baker
Only a single day of attacks is shown here…multiply these attacks by fifteen years to understand how hard Team McAdams has been working to discredit the witness: (thousands of their attacks were erased between 2002-2003 and between 2006-2007)
Sept. 28, 2000: “Judyth Baker and the Ex-Lax Plot” posted
By David Lifton to John McAdams’ newsgroup:
Lifton: “Personally, I think it would have made a good news story. Returning to that final snippet of dialogue, can't you see the headline?. . . "Assassin
Advised to Take Ex-Lax Prior to Dallas--Girlfriend Recalls Advice Just
Prior to JFK Murder"
NOTE: Dr. James Fetzer and others had access to more details from Baker, and agree that it is not outrageous that someone medically trained, as Baker was, might make such a suggestion, as physical evidence of illness would have been necessary, not merely saying :”I don’t feel good….”
Immediately, Team McAdams intimated that Ex-Lax did not exist in the 1960’s:
John McAdams, same day, asked by two researchers why Lifton didn’t keep confidentiality as promised, says Baker has “handlers”:
“Why should she have asked him to keep it confidential? It sounds like
she is willing to talk, and her handlers are having to keep her
sequestered and quiet… I'll look forward to seeing what …sorts of conspiracy factoids are incorporated into Judyth’s tale.”
The pattern, implying that Baker had handlers, that she had done previous extensive research, that she had even planned for decades to speak out with a false narrative, was begun by Lifton and McAdams, and was now set to carelessly and constantly exaggerate any errors Baker ever made, or to misrepresent anything Baker ever said, whenever possible – not excluding outright lies about Baker.
Interestingly, Basker was accused not only of doing extensive research, but also of making ridiculous errors easily correctable with a tiny bit of research, concerning whether Lee Oswald was cirumcised. The same person who had described accurately everything else about Oswald's physiology was supposed to have asserted that Lee was "circumcised (not)" according to a post by Dave Reitzes.
With Lee Oswald's autopsy on the Internet well before 1999, this supposed statement was from emails Reitzes published that he had promised to keep confidential. Baker had asked that her emails to Reitzes, as well as her emails to others, to not be published because Sixty Minutes had asked that the story be kept out of public view until they had finished their investigations. Filming was called off after these emails were published -- the second time the project was called off -- but after Baker produced additional new evidence, Sixty Minutes investigators decided to continue what would prove to be their longest and most expensive investigation, to that point in their long history, of any story they had ever looked into.
The method of attack shown above would continue into 2014, along with statements that “Baker has been proven to have falsified her story” – with a list of Baker’s errors (whether or not true). Team McAdams, who first perpetuated such myths as “Judyth did cancer research at a coffee factory” later had to move to much more trivial arguments such as “Baker said the library building [at University of Louisiana at Lafayette] was five stories high when it was only three stories high”
In this manner, many false versions of Baker’s statements, or trivial objections ignoring the evidence and living witnesses Baker produced, were sent out to researchers.
The same day…Sept. 28, 2000….continued….
Martin Shackelford replied: [to David Lifton} “As for your pitiful references to her story, they are a mixture of inaccuracies and details misleadingly taken out of context--of course, it is even more likely that you didn't bother to explore the context. The Phillips reference is particularly misrepresented.”
[To McAdams:] “[Lifton] asked how she was treated by media people
with whom she had talked (this was discussed because he had agreed to confidentiality--a pledge he has violated this week…)”
============
In 2010, Barb Junkkarenin, who has never personally met or interviewed Baker in the years she has been “doing research” on Baker, brought to readers the following objections to Baker’s account:
1) Baker reported the library having 5 stories instead of 3
2) Baker said elevators weren’t working for a year (correction: Baker said that every time she went to the library, where upper floors were under construction, the elevators were not working—Baker, at that time physically handicapped due to an "accident" was there only a few times. Besides, Baker reports she went to the PUBLIC library and it was there that she learned the WC 26 volumes were available.).
3) the entire library issue has to do with BJ’s assertion that Baker said she did no research between 1999 and 2000, ignoring Baker’s statement that Baker stated she had read Oswald’s Tale and Marina and Lee, and by late 2000 had discovered and started to read the 26 volumes. But Baker had already told her story in tremendous detail to 60 Minutes, Martin Shackelford and Dr. Howard Platzman as early as May-July, 1999.
BJ’s stating that Baker must have done a great deal of previous research has even been denied by members of Baker’s family who are angry that she spoke out. Closest family members, friends and even students knew Baker’s time was being taken up entirely by her teaching duties, her 100 mile commutes, and the fact that in 1999, she was handicapped, with painkillers limiting her acuity and mobility. They were shocked when Baker spoke out in March, 1999. Baker’s story has never changed. Additional questions have simply elicited additional details.
More Information, Not "Embroidery"
For example, in August, 1999, Shackelford and Platzman asked Baker if she had ever heard of “the Clinton witnesses.” She said she had not, and they went on to other matters in emails exchanged that evening. Finally, tha same evening, Platzman reworded the question and asked Baker if she knew what OSWALD WAS DOING in Clinton. Immediately Baker responded, describing the trip to Clinton with Shaw and Ferrie and an aide, and then the subsequent trip with Oswald to Jackson two days later. For the first time, the researchers realized that a three-day trip had not been involved, which had generated two batches of witnesses contradicting the kind of car, the dates, etc., but that two separate trips had taken place.
Baker did not ‘evolve’ anything in this typical example. She has a scientifically trained, literal mind when questioned and answers the literal question. When asked about the Clinton witnesses, Baker did not know about them because she had not done any research. An hour later, when Platzman asked if she knew about Oswald and Clinton, she immediately responded.
Since then, Baker has learned to volunteer information when a RELATED question is asked. Her story has not evolved, therefore, but has gained more definition and detail as more questions have been asked.
Another example: Baker was asked by researcher Ed Haslam about the name of the pastor and his wife at St. George’s Episcopal church. Nobody had ever asked her before, but she told him at once that it was Pastor Richardson and his wife. Haslam looked them up and verified Richardson was the pastor at that church in 1963. This synched with Baker’s statement that she was helped by the Richardsons after the police raid where she was thrown into the streets in the middle of the night. Later Baker found a letter, and sent a scan of it to Haslam, written by her former husband, Robert Baker, who mentioned both Richardson and the landlady –Webber-- whose house had been raided, in the same sentence.
Adding the names Richardson and Webber is not an embroidery to the narrative. It is additional detail. Through questions, backed up by documents, letters, family memories, etc. Baker’s entire stay in New Orleans, day by day, has been reconstructed, thanks to her good long-term memory and the many items, newspaper articles, poems and diary entries she saved—and also, thanks to researchers asking good questions, unlike researchers who made, as did both David Lifton and John Armstrong, only a single contact in a single telephone call of no great length (Armstrong also sent a few emails, none of which asked for particular details. ).
But the tide against Baker has turned, even though a few newsgroups persist in making personal attacks. Such researchers and concerned individuals as Jim Marrs, Jesse Ventura, Robert Groden, Nigel Turner, Harrison Livingstone, Martin Shackelford, Howard Platzman, Peter deVries, Dr. James Fetzer, Dr. John DeLane Williams, Edward T. Haslam, Wim Dankbaar, Vincent Palamara, playwright Lisa Soland, and many others have spent the requisite time to get all (or much) of her story, or who have read her book and then contacted her for more information, have done much to dispel the bad effects created by Team McAdams and by their Internet websites.
Baker recommends readers who have a sincere interest in the truth about Lee Harvey Oswald to visit a website
http://www.meandlee.com , her blog
http://www.judythbaker.blogspot.com as well as to view “The Love Affair”—the documentary –Episode 8—in the History Channel series The Men Who Killed Kennedy, as well as videos at LOLA4JVB4LHO on YouTube. You can read her essays and decide for yourself is she really can write her own material by visiting essays and writings of Judyth Vary Baker on SCRIBD. Wim Dankbaar’s CD’s (questions asked of Baker by Jim Marrs) was made back in 2000, as was a filmed interview of one of Baker's witnesses, Anna Lewis, who faced threats and reprisals for her trouble, which is available on YouTube and at Wim Dankbaar's site
http://www.JFKMurderSolved.com . Baker does not refuse to answer sincere people who ask sincere questions: she is available at researcher "Dean Hartwell's page "Vindication for Judyth Vary Baker" and her "Judyth Baker" Facebook pages. Live-recorded interviews are now available online, such as at Popeye Jefferson's FEDERAL JACK, Talking Stick, Conspiracy Café and Dr. Jim Fetzer’s podcasts.
Barb next writes: Cancer cells detected through urine for cytology can be from other places in the urinary tract, btw ... not just the bladder.
=====Barb is THE cancer expert? Citation, please.
And –so what, if the cells were shed from the urinary tract instead of the bladder? I wasn’t going to work to remove a bladder and inspect its teeny-tiny opened-up interior under a microscope, if I saw no cancer cells in the urine. Not with 175 mice at a time to dissect. I was doing so much dissection that my mother begged me never to dissect any pet, as I had a turtle that died when I was at St. Francis, and she was afraid I’d dissected even it. I still have the letter.====
Barb (carrying on): Brain, bone, liver ... and, I think, the adrenal glands, are the most common sites of lung cancer metasteses, though it can spread to virtually any organ. Was she routinely checking those more common sites too?
====Among other failings in her medical ‘knowledge,’ Barb cannot spell “metastases,” Does she actually believe I would not inspect all major organs and systems? That’s precisely why I checked bladder contents. Part of the over-all procedure.=====
Barb: …In all her detailed explanations of her mouse cancer doings over all these years, I don't recall ever hearing about checking mouse urine for metasteses to the bladder ... or checking of any sort for the same to other organs.
=== Barb, cancer expert, can’t even spell “METASTASES” a second time correctly. In the case of the tumors of the mice killed at Dave Ferrie’s, I’m on record describing and picturing intraperitoneal tumors of great size that were excised, opened, categoried, and weighed, along with the lung cancer tumors. Photos of these huge tumors were displayed in all versions of my book.
Here’s a reference: Gerber, Bigelo, Lord, et al, wrote: “Controlling metastases remains a critical problem in cancer biology. Within the peritoneal cavity …We found that the vasculature within these aggregates contained CD105+ vessels and vascular sprouts, both indicators of active angiogenesis. ...metastatic tumor cells preferentially grow at sites rich in proangiogenic vessels, apparently stimulated by angiogenic factors produced by mesothelial cells.”
=====
Barb writes on: This stuff is familiar to me
==No, it is obviously not!===
Barb:….because in my years in the lab, it sometimes
==just ‘sometimes’?===
Barb: …happened on my watch that a patient needed to collect a urine for cytology and sometimes I was the one handy to instruct the patient, or the doctor, and/or handle the specimen when it came in.
=== Barb thinks this statement will make the reader believe she is an expert in handling cancerous mouse urine and identifying murine bladder cancers, including criticizing my methodology. She told people how to wee into a cup, and/or how to handle the cup of urine thus obtained—that’s not cancer research.====
Barb: Years later, I wrote the hopsital's lab services manual that includes the specimen collection and handling requirements for every test ... including cytology specimens.
==”Specimen collection” is a clean wee-wee into a cup. Handling the cup of urine to prepare it for tests has nothing to do with the tests themselves. Citation? We just take BJ’s word for it? Such handbooks are written at a 10th grade level and require little training.====
Barb: I've also handled processing and preparing cytology specs for examination by the pathologist ... in the olden days.
==Whoopee. She put samples into the refrigerator. She put droplets onto a slide. She did NO EXAMINATIONS HERSELF. But I did, routinely.
I was trained by cancer specialists and pathologists trained at Oak Ridge, and by others running the new oncology labs at Manatee Memorial Hospital. I have mentioned going to Manatee Memorial Hospital’s basement, where the new lab was located, and creating many tissues slides there. Gee, where did all those hundreds of slides of mouse cancer tissues and blood materials come from? Pathologists and doctors overlooked my work until I was deemed able to handle all murine specs alone. Was Barb trained by pathologists? My eyes are no good, now, but in the 1960’s, I was good with the microscope, very good.===
Barb: For years now there is a fully staffed dept of
cytotechnologists and histologists who do all that for themselves and for the pathologists who review all abnormal cytology finds, and, of course, attend to grossing all tissues as well as reading the slides/block preparations.
===I mention using a microtome in the books. How happy I was to get my first microtome. What would I be wanting THAT for, Barb? For slides/block preparations.====
Barb: Tell her to google more, Martin...she should be able to come up with the specimen handling and processing requirements for performance of urine for cytology. Cell degradation, fixation, the button, staining
====Barb doesn’t understand the first steps, assuming everything has to be stained or set in balsam, it seems. She needs to google and look at all the ‘fresh urine’ and ‘murine cancer’ entries. Of course, there are other search terms she’d need to find everything, such as ‘distilled water’ and ‘brushing’ to find out what I was doing.===
Barb: ... she doesn't seem to have a clue what all is involved. It is not the quick look at a few drops of fresh urine under the microscope she seems to be making it out to be ...
==Barb is 100% in error here. It was the sediment, what first drifts down into the hypo,in those ten drops of urine, that was examined from every bladder.====
Barb: to decide whether or not to open the bladder on a dead mouse, no less (sigh).
========Nonsense. You use the sediment. It settles at the bottom of the hypo cylinder in just a few minutes. Lots of junk there, a lot of various cells, and interest in any abnormal cells present, If so, the bladder is opened for inspection. Spencer’s “Urinalysis” manual for technicians describes why fresh urine is used:
“ The specimen used for microscopic examination should be as fresh as possible. Red cells and many formed solids tend to disintegrate upon standing, particularly if the specimen is warm or alkaline….(the urine sediment is accessed)… Place a coverslip over the drop and place under the microscope. Although commercial stains are available to highlight cellular elements, examination of unstained urine is usually adequate…Urine sediment is assessed under a high power field (HPF) for the presence of red and white blood cells. Normally, there should be only an occasional red blood cell in the urine (2-3 per high power field). Hematuria , the presence of abnormal numbers of red blood cells in the urine may be due to: Glomerular disease …Tumors…”
It’s true that metastases into the bladder from a lung cancer proved to be so rare I didn’t bother to open the bladder unless intrigued by what I saw in a drop of sediment. Instead, I wanted the rest of urine saved, to analyze for gross chemical differences between mice with lung cancer and the controls. After all, this was only 1960-1961. In my high school. I woulod gain much more expertise by 1963.======
Barb: "Blithering ignorance" is a pretty darn good description overall here,
====Barb again descends to name calling instead of using citations. We are also expected to believe her version of her lab experience, without documentation, while she attacks me as an ‘expert’ when she doesn’t understand the concept of using fresh urine when examining murine urine for unusual cells in the sediment portion of the sample.===
imo ...
