I've been a SYSOP on Boston-area BBSes for over ten years. This is my first venture into the InterNet. Most of my cyberspace time has been spent on CompuServe, where you can still reach me at the ID number 72127,2301. I also run a FIDOnet BBS called The Puzzle Palace, which you can call directly at 617-625-2815. One of its special features is an online version of NAMEBASE, which is a database program to find citations of books and articles about famous people such as politicians and spies. You can also post messages to me at my FIDOnet node 1:101/505 or on the national FIDO echo JFK_ASSN, which is on the backbone so that a local BBS can grab it for you.
I've always been interested in the intelligence community, as my father was a section chief at the National Security Agency and we had many family friends in the intelligence community in and around Washington, DC. My particular interest in the JFK assassination developed in the early '70's. As part of the baby boom generation, I was in college at the Boston Conservatory of Music when anti-Vietnam War activists were trying to shut down all the colleges, to protest the war in Vietnam. Although I opposed shutting down all the colleges, I did agree with the philosophies of the anti-war movement and resolved to learn more about the war. Tracing its history, I found that JFK had wanted to pull all the US troops out South Vietnam, while just after his assassination, LBJ decided to escalate our involvement in Vietnam. So, maybe there was something to the conspiracy theories after all, especially those of the anti-war writers such as Carl Oglesby.
I then started investigating the JFK assassination and found so many mistakes and cover-ups that it became clear that a new investigation was needed. I joined Mark Lane's group, Citizens Commission of Inquiry, and lobbied for the formation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The HSCA concluded in 1978 that there had indeed been a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. Since then most of my research has been devoted to getting documents declassified, reexamining the evidence, writing articles and presenting papers on technical aspects, and providing other researchers with hard-to-find materials.
Although my primary interest is the JFK assassination, I will be delving into many other issues involving National Security. In each column I will try to provide the appropriate documents and explanations to explain the significance of the various documents in the files area. Where possible, a document will be available in both a scanned in GIF or JPEG and also converted into an ASCII text file.