The Reason Lincoln Had to Die

[mikegriffith1]

(11-02-2018 03:08 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(11-02-2018 02:32 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  I just finished reading an incredible little book by Don Thomas titled The Reason Booth Had to Die, published just last year (2017). Relying mainly on primary sources, Thomas makes a strong case against the traditional story/the military commission's scenario. His most interesting section is his discussion on the 1977 FBI analysis of Booth's diary, which found that large chunks of the diary were tampered with, and much content removed from it, after the War Department obtained it. This is hard, physical evidence of the cover-up that followed Lincoln's murder.

Also, I was interested to read that Thomas found several accounts of the apparent signal whistles near Booth's escape route. Guttridge and Neff discussed these signal whistles as well.

Despite what the book's title might suggest to some, the book says very little about the controversy over Booth's fate. Thomas assumes Booth died at Garrett's farm. Thomas does not appear to have done much research on the issue, possibly because he indicates that he finds the theory to be far-fetched and wild.

Thomas shows that Stanton and his military commission did all they could to suppress and ignore any leads that led away from their version of the assassination and that involved investigating plausible suspects beyond the handful of direct accomplices they were willing to acknowledge.

Thomas examines Louis Weichmann's story and finds it to be severely lacking in credibility.

Thomas has an information-packed website on the Lincoln assassination. It includes numerous free articles on the case:

https://reasonlincoln.com/

Here we go again. This book is a sequel to the one Thomas published about five years ago entitled The Reason Lincoln Had To Die. Such books, mostly privately published, keep coming out of the woodwork.

"Here we go again"? Yes, because some people come to the subject with an open mind and are not prepared to just see the Emperor's New Clothes. Instead, they look at the traditional story and see that it is packed with impossible claims and implausible assumptions, and that it rests on coerced/bribed perjury and plainly phony evidence (such as the magical floating letter, the equally magical fireplace letter, etc.).

(11-02-2018 03:08 PM)L Verge Wrote:  As for the FBI's report on their inspection of the Booth diary, it used to be online. The Surratt Courier carried a further article by James O. Hall (who instigated the FBI's investigation in the first place) outlining the findings for our members. Of course, I'm sure that Mr. Griffith has already decided that the FBI and other great minds on the assassination subject didn't know what they were doing --

You have not even read Thomas's analysis of the FBI report, have you? If you had read it, you would know that Thomas does not claim that the FBI forensic lab experts "did not know what they were doing." Far from it. Rather, he proves that FBI Directly Kelly whitewashed his own experts' findings (Kelly probably never even read the report but received a briefing on it by staffers). Thomas shows that the FBI experts found undeniable evidence that the diary was substantially altered and shortened after the War Department obtained it (The Reason Booth Had to Die, pp. 65-80).

Unlike you, I made my decision about the FBI report after I read both sides. After I read Thomas's 15-page analysis in his book, I read five sources, including Steers' two-page treatment, that argue that the FBI experts found nothing that indicates fraud or cover-up. Those five sources all focus on the conclusion that the diary contained no invisible writing, and they say little or nothing about the other findings.

Kauffman, to his credit, does mention that the FBI experts found that 86 pages were missing from the diary, but he buries this fact in an endnote (American Brutas, p. 472). He says nothing about the FBI analysis in the text of his book.

Folks, by all means, compare Steers' two-page treatment of the FBI experts' findings with Thomas's 15-page discussion on those findings. I think you will see that Steers provides an incomplete and misleading picture of those findings. Steers does not even touch the most important findings that relate to the diary's content and length, whereas Thomas examines those key issues in detail and with extensive quotes from the FBI report.

(11-02-2018 03:08 PM)L Verge Wrote:  or continued to cover up the actions of the U.S. government in 1864-65.

Maybe the "scholars" who are on your list of "other great minds on the assassination" share your assumption that positing high-level government crimes and cover-ups is incredible and shocking, but most people would view that attitude as supremely outdated and untenable.