Today, I am posting a response to Raff* Sink by Professor James Norwood, Former Chairman of the OIC.
Raff* decided to attack Professor Norwood for simply responding to my post. In the past I have allowed Professor Norwood to submit information and post it for him here, where multitudes can read his remarks.
Here is an open letter that I previously published and it is followed by Professor Norwood's most current comments...
June 6, 2015
An Open Letter to Fellow JFK
Researchers Concerning the Oswald Innocence Campaign:
My name is James Norwood, and
I was a member of the Oswald Innocence Campaign (OIC) for several years. On
March 11, 2015, I assumed the position of Chair of the group. At that
time, I attempted to get to know the members on a personal basis and to
understand the workings of the OIC organization. Recently, I have stepped down from my
position due to differences in philosophy with the founder, Ralph Cinque. I am no longer a member of this group. At this time, I wish to share my views on the
Oswald Innocence Campaign.
During my tenure as Chair, the OIC’s webpage listed 51 Senior Members along
with their photos and biographical profiles. But Mr. Cinque could only
locate e-mail addresses for 34 out of 51 members. This means that 17
members (33 1/3%) are not only non-active, but impossible to contact.
Additionally, in the group’s e-mail forum, only a handful of the Senior Members
ever participated in the discussions. Without a critical mass of active
members, the OIC is comprised primarily of a gallery of names and photos.
I understand that several of the members are in failing health and are
physically unable to participate. And, to be fair, I have experienced
several stimulating e-mail conversations, but, in each instance, there were
only three or four members sharing their views.
If it is impossible even to contact by e-mail up to one-third of the
membership and only several members regularly engage in discussions, then this
organization is functionally non-existent.
Mr. Cinque has dictated the content of the OIC home page with his single-minded
purpose of presenting amateur photo analyses.
The seemingly endless diagrams of photo and film frame images are based
on the premise that the photos are fake.
But there is no evidence presented that even remotely suggests where the
films and photos were altered, who altered them, and at what time the
alterations occurred. Based on my scrutiny of the OIC’s home page, the
theory of Altgens6 photo alteration is not persuasive, and, after years of
debate on the internet, it has never been taken seriously by even a fraction of
the JFK research community.
Mr. Cinque also maintains a personal blog and a facebook page. He posts
daily internet commentaries that have recently expanded well beyond the purview
of the JFK assassination into such conspiracy theories as the death of Osama
bin Laden. As apparent in the two website
titles, Mr. Cinque gives the impression that his personal opinions reflect the
OIC organization as a whole. The OIC blog site is entitled "Oswald
in the Doorway: The Blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign."
The OIC facebook page is entitled, "Oswald Innocence Campaign:
Community." I am troubled that the subjective views of Mr. Cinque
are being presented in the guise of the OIC community, when in fact, the
opinions belong to Mr. Cinque alone with no group consensus whatsoever.
Many of the postings of Mr. Cinque are part of his ongoing personal quarrels on
the internet. There is no disclaimer indicating that his views do not represent
those of the organization as a whole. I
have ethical concerns about a solitary writer engaging in nonstop,
profanity-laced verbal jousting that gives the impression that Mr. Cinque's
views are representative of the OIC members in general.
On May 26, I sent a proposal to Mr. Cinque for a new direction of the OIC away
from Altgens6 photo alteration and into the more general area of studies of the
JFK assassination and Oswald. My
proposal, which included the draft of a revised Mission Statement, was
categorically rejected by Mr. Cinque, who invited me to step down as Chair and
to exit the organization. Due to (a) the
narrow focus and unpersuasive content of the present OIC homepage, (b) Mr.
Cinque’s misrepresentation of his personal postings on the blog/facebook pages,
(c) the inability to contact a third of the Senior Members, and (d) a host of
other issues, I am unable to recommend the Oswald Innocence Campaign to any
serious researcher of the JFK assassination.
Respectfully submitted,
James Norwood
I have really appreciated these exposés
by bpete and the opportunity to write comments. They are well presented and
well-reasoned analyses.
The point that Ralph Cinque is unable to grasp is the inherent subjectivity
involved in studying photographs. I find no anomaly and nothing sinister about
the photo with Dallas police officer whose head is bowed. We could take a poll
and probably find a few people who believe that the hat looks strange. But that
discussion will not advance our knowledge of the JFK assassination. It is
merely another time-waster like all of Ralph's endeavors (Oswald in the
Doorway, Mary Moorman as Babuska Lady, Bookhout as Ruby).
I recently came across yet another internet site dedicated to exposing the wild
and unsubstantiated photo conclusions of Ralph Cinque. The latest pictorial
blog was prepared by "Jack Jackson" and may be accessed at the
following site under the title of "Ralph Cinque Outed":
https://ralph-cinque-outed.blogspot.com/
In Jackson's numerous discussions of the photographs, it becomes immediately
apparent that (1) he has photo analytical skills that are vastly superior to
those of Ralph Cinque and (2) he has prepared meticulous presentations to
debunk Ralph's conclusions about such far-fetched issues as the tiny image of
the woman and child in Altgens6. Ralph believes the images of the woman and the
toddler have been “faked.” But this is just another example of a non-starter as
a line of inquiry.
It is obvious that ANYONE can look at a photograph and draw fanciful conclusions.
It is a far more challenging discipline to support and corroborate photo
interpretations from hard evidence, including records, documents, affidavits,
eyewitness testimony.
For example, in making their case for Oswald as Doorman,
Fetzer and Cinque rely on Will Fritz's scribbled notation "out with Bill
Shelley in front." But they fail to read the full narrative version of
Fritz's interrogation notes, which places his earlier scribbled notes in
context. On p. 2 of Fritz's transcribed
notes, he writes the following: "I asked him [Oswald] what part of the
building he was in when the President was shot, and he said he was having lunch
about that time on the first floor."
In other words, Oswald informed Fritz that he was INSIDE the building at
the time of the shooting. If he had been OUTSIDE the building with an
eyewitness (Shelley) to vouch for his presence, Oswald surely would have loudly
proclaimed such an airtight alibi to Fritz and to the reporters in the hall who
had asked him the same question.
The source for the Fritz citation above may be found at:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29104#relPageId=2&tab=page
********
Ralph whiles away his life looking at photos, drawing subjective conclusions,
and never taking the time to persuasively build an argument based upon multiple
strands of evidence. He is only relying on the photos for opinion-driven
discourse. It is for this reason that Ralph's theory about Oswald in the
Doorway has never gained traction among serious JFK researchers.
The main topics that bpete has been covering in his recent posts are:
(1) Ralph's proclivity for revising and plagiarizing the work of others in the
articles that appear on the OIC home page;
(2) The blatant use of circular reasoning used by Ralph and Jim Fetzer to
advance their claims (i.e., "We have proven that Altgens6 is fake, thus we
need no other evidence to demonstrate that it is Oswald standing in the
doorway."); and
(3) the absence of a scientific foundation or even a crude knowledge of photographic
art in the 1960s, in order to demonstrate their hypotheses;
Another point that I have added in one my comments is Ralph's lack of civility
in his internet discourse.
In raising the topic of the "hat trick,” Ralph is overtly transparent in
his attempt to deflect attention away from the valid criticisms of his work, as
enumerated in bpete’s thoughtful presentations.
Thank you Professor Norwood. I will be posting this on both of my blogs...B