John Minchin Lloyd - Who was he...really?

[scldrgnfly]

Thanks Betty and Laurie! So Laurie, you are saying that both J. J. Reford and J. J. Chaffee are code names for "operatives," but their real identities are not publicly known? Would you be honoring your confidentiality agreement, if you said whether the person who confided this information to you had "physical" proof, in the form of correspondance or written records, or has this person identified them based upon circumstantial evidence?

Here are a couple more thoughts about John Minchen Lloyd's choice as a proprietor for Surratt's Tavern, like Brawner's Hotel, it seemed to be quite a gathering place for the local talent. It doesn't seem like it would do to have a pair of ears about that hadn't been thoroughly vetted.

Also, while I did appreciate "The Conspirator," and I don't think this comes from any family loyalty, BUT, I really don't like it when screenwriters and directors, put words and actions in an actor's performance that we have written proof did not occur. If you compare the testimony of given witnesses and their behaviors on the witness stand, it seems obvious to me that the "The Conspirator" took a bit more than "poetic license" with John Lloyd's testimony.

While John Lloyd, himself, may have wished to appear a drunken ner'do-well, not only did his testimony appear coached, he had the ability under great pressure to have remembered EVERYTHING his coach told him to do, in particular, ONLY answer the questions asked and don't give up any more information in your response. If you read some of the others' testimonies, they couldn't escape their everyday vernacular and putting in their own two cents. On the stand, John Lloyd knew how to conduct himself. The portrayal of him in "The Conspirator" was rather disingenuous and misleading.

When you have a military tribunal where the testimony was not only painstakingly taken down word for word, but carefully read to everyone, before the tribunal proceeded the next day to assure that everyone agreed that the proceedings for the previous day were accurate....why would one have so little respect for those who tried to safeguard the information the tribunal used to sentence these people?

Frankly, the less obvious, more accurate portrayal of the facts, might have made for a much more interesting and mysterious character....and the point is, they would have been true to Poore and what the tribunal was attempting to record, the "facts," at least as far as the witnesses stated them, regardless of their veracity.