Appendix A: Mysterious Deaths of Key Witnesses

Some of the most revealing evidence of a conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy is the high mortality rate among key witnesses to the assassination. During the fourteen years following the assassination, at least 48 people described as key witnesses died unnatural deaths. Sixteen of those who died unnatural deaths did so in a period of under two years. During that same fourteen-year period, 53 key witnesses died of supposedly natural causes. Reportedly, the esteemed insurance company Lloyd's of London was asked to do an actuarial study to determine the probability of 16 key witnesses dying unnatural deaths within two years of the assassination. The odds against all 16 key witnesses dying of unnatural causes within that two-year period was over ten trillion to one.
The causes of death for the 53 key witnesses are officially listed as follows: 17 murders, eight suicides, three accidental shootings, five airplane or helicopter crashes, four car crashes, two struck by automotive vehicles, two falls, two drug overdoses, two electrocutions, one accidental explosion, one fire and one blow to the neck.
Arguably, most of those key witnesses were in lines of work that would tend to shorten their life expectancy. Of the 48 key witnesses to die unnatural deaths between 1963 and 1978, 14 were alleged gangsters or associates of gangsters, two were private detectives or their associates, four were soldiers of fortune, two were law enforcement officers or stool pigeons, two were connected to the CIA, four were military personnel, one was a heroin addict, one was a cab driver and three were investigative reporters or their relatives. Of several others who died in airplane crashes, all of them regularly flew, often in privately-owned, propeller-driven airplanes. Still, as many as a third of the key witnesses who died unnatural deaths had not been in high-risk occupations.
In determining the odds of that many key witnesses dying unnatural deaths, it is natural to ask, "How many key witnesses were there before they started dropping like flies; and what qualifications must they have had to be considered key witnesses?"
The first question is impossible to answer, because they cover such a wide range of human activities. They may have been present at Dealy Plaza on the day of the assassination or on the Dallas police force around that time. They may have been reporters who covered the story, or they may have been their relatives. One had served on the Warren Commission. Others may have had close contact with one of the commissioners. There are many other areas in which key witnesses may be found.
Most key witnesses had not been identified as such until after they brought attention to themselves by dying.
The second question is much easier to answer. We would have reason to believe that someone is a key witness if he was present at Dealy Plaza on the day of the assassination, or if he had had contact with one or more of the principle characters known to be, or suspected of being, involved in the assassination; or if he in some way investigated the assassination or was close to such an investigator.
If someone who might be a key witness turns up dead, that would prove—ipso facto—that he had been a key witness. After all, if he were not a key witness to the assassination, why would anyone kill him to keep him from talking about it? It's a pity that serious investigators of the Kennedy assassination are not as adept at identifying key witnesses as are those who kill them. If they were, they could learn what the witnesses know before it's too late to ask them.
There is one aspect of the mysterious deaths of key witnesses that deserves much more attention than it is getting. That is the 53 key witnesses who died of apparently natural causes. As you will soon see, these so-called natural deaths are more revealing than the obviously unnatural deaths.
First, let's take a quick look at the alleged causes of death of these 53 witnesses.
Thirty-six died of heart attacks or complications due to heart disease; one died during heart surgery, 24 died of cancer; one died from liver disease and one died of a stroke due to a blood clot. A CIA chief was once quoted as saying, "A conspiracy is successful if it remains a secret from inception to infinity." Another homily concerning conspiracies runs, "The first job of a conspiracy is to convince people that there is no conspiracy."
All of the deaths among key witnesses to the Kennedy assassination are perfectly in keeping with these views of conspiracy. Two things would prevent a murder from being investigated: either it is believed to have been solved already, or it is not recognized as a murder.
Though it would take a high degree of technical knowledge—a point we will address shortly—all 53 of the apparently natural deaths could have been cleverly-disguised murders.
Of all the means of killing someone and making it look like natural causes, the heart attack is the simplest and easiest. In the "wet affairs" department of the KGB, the most common method is hydrocyanic acid. A spray of hydrocyanic acid in the face will immediately induce heart failure. Hydrocyanic acid is so volatile, that it will completely leave the bloodstream in a matter of minutes. For that reason, it is virtually undetectable. Hydrocyanic acid may be sprayed from something as simple as a rolled-up newspaper, though the department of "wet affairs" preferred to conceal it in a specially-equipped umbrella.
One of these heart attack deaths was that of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who died in his sleep on the night of May 1-2, 1972. It is highly suspicious that the KGB's most significant enemy was killed during the international communist holiday. This is not to suggest, though, that the KGB was involved in the planning and assassination of President Kennedy. Once the assassination took place, though, it may have been necessary for them to do all they could to rub out people who could have proven Oswald's connection to the KGB in earlier matters. That connection, if discovered, could have caused them to be blamed for the assassination.
Though the KGB had the technical expertise to carry out the killing of J. Edgar Hoover and others, their organizational expertise to carry out those operations within the United States was not sufficient. They would have to have had the cooperation of the CIA.
Let us proceed with our discussion of the other suspicious deaths.
Since heart surgery is an extremely delicate operation, it's easier to kill the patient than to save him. The witness who died during heart surgery was William Harvey, a CIA official, sometimes called "America's James Bond,” who was familiar with the CIA's attempts to kill Fidel Castro.
As almost everyone knows, cancer may be induced by a variety of means, all of which involve some type of radiation. It may be induced by radioactive isotopes, X-rays, ultra-violet rays, gamma radiation, microwaves or by other means. The victim is a gone gobbler, and there can be no proof that he was murdered.
Liver failure is a bit more difficult to induce, but it can be done. First, alcohol must be somehow introduced into the victim's bloodstream. It would certainly be helpful if the victim is an alcoholic, for then, his liver is already weakened. Otherwise, a more exotic means must be found. Once a sufficient amount of alcohol is in his bloodstream, he can be murdered by someone disguised as a cleaning lady. When the victim breathes fumes from the furniture polish, the fumes will soon enter his bloodstream and combine with the alcohol in his system. Once this deadly combination reaches his liver, he's as dead as last Thanksgiving's turkey.
Jack Ruby died of a stroke due to a blood clot. Several things can cause a blood clot, so it is a matter of conjecture just how Ruby's blood clot was formed. Some people's bodies have difficulty assimilating certain kinds of proteins. Remember that Jack Ruby died in the custody of the Dallas Police Department, so they had total control over his diet. If he were deprived of Protein-C, or if his body were chemically induced to reject Protein-C, a blood clot would have formed in an artery or a vein. If it had formed in the vein and were left unattended, the clot could have gone to his lung and killed him. The official cause of death would have been a pulmonary thrombosis. If the clot had formed in his artery, which it did, it would have gone to his brain and caused a stroke.
It would have taken, I must reiterate, a high degree of technical and organizational expertise to have engineered 53 murders in such a way as to make them look like deaths by natural causes. That's why I believe that the supposedly natural deaths are more significant than the 48 obviously unnatural deaths. The CIA is the only group of people in America that has that kind of expertise. All those apparently natural deaths, then, clearly prove that the CIA was involved.