Welcome to The Puzzle Palace on The Tangled Web. Although my primary 
focus will be information concerning the assassination of President John F. 
Kennedy, I plan to delve into all aspects of national security. We've been busy 
scanning in and typing in various documents which you will be able to soon 
download. Eventually, all files will be available for downloading in a master 
directory and hopefully well enough named that it will be obvious what each 
file is. For example, original documents which have been converted into text 
files will bear the extension .DOC. While reading this column you will be able 
to pop up either the text file version of a document or a GIF of the document 
by clicking either ASCII or GIF. Wherever possible, I will try to provide an 
ASCII text version of a document in addition to a scanned in GIF. Most will be 
formatted so that when you print them out with the settings of 6 lines per inch 
and 10 characters per inch, they will closely approximate the appearance of the 
orginal document on an 8.5 x 11 inch page.

        There are several exciting new developments in the research of the JFK
assassination. After a difficult start, the Assassination Records Review Board
has started releasing previously classified and redacted documents in their
original form, completely unredacted. The first batch of documents which the 
ARRB released were 16 documents from the CIA's 201 file on Lee Harvey Oswald.
Most of the documents deal with Oswald's trip to Mexico City in late September
and early October of 1963 and his contacts, or alleged contacts, with the Cuban
and Soviet Embassies in Mexico City. We are scanning in copies of these
documents now and should have them available for downloading soon. 
Unfortunately, the quality of some of the pages is quite poor due to the type
of copiers used at the National Archives or the multi-generation nature of the
copies. In the meantime, I have prepared a brief index of the 16 documents,
listing each by their CIA batch numbers, cross-indexing their FOIA release
numbers, and briefly describing each document. You will be able to download
the GIFs of each document. Rather than typing in each document, I would suggest
that you order the original documents you want directly from the National 
Archives. Each person is allowed a credit of up to 100 pages of documents from
the JFK collection at no charge. The normal charge for mail ordering documents
from the National Archives is 25 cents per page. The first release of 16 JFK
documents totals 61 pages, so normally that would cost you $15.25 to buy them,
but the National Archives will send this batch to you for free and you would
still have credit left for an additional 39 pages. However, please bear in mind
that for each document you request, they also include 2 computer generated
pages to identify each document, so that if you requested 2 single-page 
documents, you would be charged for 6 copies. You can either mail your request
to The National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, Washington, DC
20408 or via FAX to 1-301-731-7480. You may also want to contact the ARRB and
communicate your concern that all or specific documents be declassified and 
released. Send your letter to Assassination Records Review Board, Second Floor,
600 E Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20530, or telephone (202) 724-0088, or 
FAX (202) 724-0457.

        Newly released documents will be a primary focus of the upcoming COPA 
conference. The conference sponsored by the Coalition on Political
Assassinations will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC on
October 20-22, 1995. For more details, read the accompanying text file. There
will also be presentations on the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Among some of the highlights I expect to be presented
will be some interesting new developments in analysis of the JFK autopsy photos
and X-rays, and an update on attempts by the FBI to block the release of files
which the ARRB has voted to release. The FBI appeal has been sent to President
Clinton, who has not acted within the required 30-day period, so it is an
open question as to whether these documents should automatically be released
after that 30-day period unless the President sides with the FBI attempt at
cover-up. By the time of the conference, this issue should have been resolved.
Dr. John Newman, author of the books JFK and Vietnam, and Oswald and the CIA,
has been reviewing the latest releases and may have some amazing finds to 
report. One interesting document which Dr. Newman recently found is a 1975
deposition by FBI Special Agent Carver Gayton confirming that Oswald was an
FBI informant. There is also a second batch of Oswald 201 files being released
which may be available by the time of the COPA conference. 

        Among the presentations we expect there will be some conclusive
analysis of the JFK autopsy X-rays. Dr. Randy Robertson is convinced that the
JFK radiographs are authentic and reveal evidence of 2 bullet wounds to the
head, one from behind near the external occipital protuberance, and the other
from the right front. Due to the nature of the intersecting fracture lines on
the skull, he believes that the first shot hit the back of the head, and a 
second shot struck the front, accounting for the double motion of the head. 
Dr. David Mantik is almost 100% convinced that the X-rays themselves are 
genuine and authentic. At last year's COPA conference, Dr. Mantik had indicated
that his opinion was changing from skepticism to authentification and that he
still had some more tests to perform on the original X-ray materials housed at
the National Archives. Since then, his examination of the original X-rays has 
proven that they are not copies, but are genuine and authentic. There are
still troubling aspects in interpreting the damage to the skull and brain, but
his pioneering use of optical density analysis shows that the radiographs are 
genuine and authentic. It is hoped that the example of these two researchers
coming together and agreeing on the authenticity of the evidence will be a 
call for all researchers to put aside nagging doubts and bizarre theories based
on evidence tampering and agree that the physical evidence is authentic.

        In future columns, I plan to discuss some of the little-known aspects
of the JFK assassination, such as the Pedro Charles hoax letters and the 
Barghoorn incident. As new CIA documents are released, I will try to provide
some technical analysis and tips to help understand these documents.