This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to kf I AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
It's Weird Mondays. They just they surprised me at this time. What is here? Oh, the big, massive twelve o'clock hour. Yeah, well it is. It's so big, it's it's too big for this hour. Buckle up.
We're actually going to be talking with Gerald Posner here in just a few minutes. He is an expert on the assassinations of JFK and MLK and obviously last week's executive order to release a bunch of the files regarding this.
This is the guy to talk to.
So we're going to talk with Gerald Posner.
Super excited about that. What else is going on? Time for what's happening.
What's happening is a damage fire damage burglary called public Adjuster ABNERA eight eight nine seven five two five. The rain has moved on for the most part, hard looks. There are still some muddy roads after some small mudslides, but we got away with this one. Rain totals predicted to be about an inch or less in most.
Areas, but there are a few places.
Like Porter Ranch that got almost one in two thirds inches, Calabasas got over an inch, north Ridge almost an inch and a half. New Hall got about three quarters of an inch, and up in Ventura County, just about everybody got at least an inch down an Orange County slightly less than that.
Big story on Wall Street where tax excuse me, tech stocks are tanking. Concerns about China's company Deep Seek Ai have caused this a massive selloff, with shares of Navidias lighting seventeen percent in Volatile Trading company claims this is being China's deep Seek AI app. It claims it's cheaper AI model outperforms Open ai in several tests and it's cheaper.
The Nasdaq has been down over six undred points at times today, s and P five hundred has also been lower, on pace for its first worst day in a month. The Dow, of course, who doesn't deal in tech stocks, turned positive. It was read to start the session, but made a turnaround there. Deep Seek, by the way says it's dealing with attacks on its services and temporarily limiting new users. I actually signed up for the app because
it was number one with Apple today. I was curious about it, and they never sent me the code to qualify my account or what have you.
We are watching in real time government trying to dismantle itself as a result of the fires and the palisades in Altadina area, and one new executive order from the state reiterates that permitting requirements under the California Coastal Act should be suspended. Disorder extends the amount of time people can stay at hotels and short term rentals as well.
In a statement that was released today, he said the governor did, as the state helps the LA area rebuild and recover, we will continue to remove barriers and red tape that stand in the way. We will not let there's something funny about this. We will not let overregulations stop us from helping the LA community rebuild and recover. Who's responsible for all of the over regulation but the politicians who have been in power for the last thirty years in California. And now is the time that you
think that regulation is not a good thing. I agree with you, but it also takes a certain amount of hubris to realize that, or to not realize that you were part of the problem to begin with.
We talked about the.
Poor fans in Buffalo, having lost four Super Bowls in the nineties and then having the dynasty of the Patriots outshine them for twenty plus years, and now it seems like it's their time. They'd have got to contend with the Kansas City Chiefs and their legacy, well, the Patriots fans, right, They've got to also contend with the fact that they are no longer the king of the NFL. Hill to make matters worse, they were hit with an earthquake this morning.
Three point eight magnitude earthquake struck near the main coast.
They felt it in Boston. Oh no, oh, no.
It would be kind of odd if you're in Boston and suddenly you feel an earthquake, because three point eight you feel, yeah, especially if you're not used to it.
But would you know, well, I guess obviously you would know eventually, But would you know what it was right away?
No. I think it was like an explosion on the block somewhere, some sort of like chemical explosion.
New York City's Mayor Eric Adams has had to limit his public schedule this week. Apparently he's going to be undergoing medical tests today in a couple of doctors appointments because over this last few days, according to one of his spokespeople, Mayor Adams hasn't been feeling well. Sixty four years old, he is expected to stand trial on federal corruption charges in April. He's been making headlines. At least
the second half of last week. He was making headlines because he was talking about how I don't know if he would say he fully supports, but he's at least paying attention to and is going along with President Trump and the new administration, especially when it comes to immigration enforcement.
Do you know people who are either in the coke camp or the pepsi camp and they will not budge, Like you're at a restaurant. They order a coke and the waiter says, we only have pepsi, and they go, never mind, do.
You never mind?
I'll just have water. Do you know people like that? I think so I had a cousin like that. He was a big pepsi guy. I've heard a couple people do that before. Well, team Coke has won at Costco.
Costco switched out coke in twenty thirteen for pepsi. They said it was a cost saving measure. Well, now they're going back. They're going to officially swap out pepsi for Coca Cola products at its food courts. So team type team diet coke, You're back have fun spending all that money in costco Do you think that's part of the analysis, Like people get hypes up on diet coke are probably more likely to spend money than people hyped up fun diet pepsi.
I don't know, do you eat at the food court before or after you shop?
I feel like diet coke has definitely a different, a different reaction on me than diet pepsi. Like at the games, they're a pepsi. They're pepsi vendors at the football games for the Chargers at least, so I'll have like a diet pepsi before the game. Doesn't do the same things to me that diet coke does. Diet cokes like straight meth to the veins. Diet pepsi is like okay, like I had an extra cup of coffee, all right, cool diet cokes.
Like I'm a different person.
I would need to observe the diet pepsi influence upon you. I've seen diet coke many a time. M hmm, but die pepsi. I don't think I've ever seen dit coke.
I'm like the beast at the end of the substance Demi Moore's face on your back.
Starbucks is also going to be all offering.
I got a boob up here, a boob.
Down there, nice looking feetles get away from you when you're doing the diet coke.
Yeah, maybe we should close the door diet coke. Our boss has got a diagoe. Does diet pepsi affect button? Does diet pepsi.
Affect you differently than diet coke. You wouldn't know because you don't eat the pepsi.
Right, I'll get it a lot of times, the pepsi okay.
Yeah, and you'll say, okay, okay. Interesting.
No loyalty with you, I guess, no loyalty whatsoever, dato.
But Starbucks is going to be implementing some new and old policies at its stores beginning today. Customers who order a four here beverage can also get free refills of hot or iced coffee or hot or iced tea during their visit. It will also be served in the old fashioned coffee mug.
That's interesting.
They said They're also going to bring back the condiment bar with its creamer and the milk and the various sweeteners that used to be out.
And I don't know where.
People stealing it or taking it advantage of it. I can't remember last time I had a Starbucks per year.
I think they got rid of it during COVID. Yeah, because the COVID travels in a refill.
Yeah.
I need whatever cinnamon topping I have on.
Just like those regulation footballs killed a bunch of us, didn't I Well. One of Trump's first orders in office was to unredact some of the pages that have not been released. When it comes to the JFK, MLK Junior RFK assassinations, it goes without saying Trump has a mistrust of the intelligence community and has long had a fight with them. And there were experts who are privy to things in these papers, possibly or people who have opined that the CIA and the FBI would not look good
in light of the information that would be released. What comes to mind is the letter from that may or may not exist, from j Edgar Hoover to MLK juniors saying, wha toesus, go ahead and kill yourself. So these have long been papers that have been speculated upon. We talked about the Oliver Stone JFK movie from nineteen ninety one that resulted in an act the following year in Congress
saying release what we know longtime conspiracy. Conspiracy theories circling around the JFK assassination have not entirely been put to bed.
One of the guys who spent much of his life investigating these is Gerald Posner, an investigative journalist and author of thirteen books, one of which was called Case Closed, Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, published almost thirty years ago. Now, and Gerald, first, thanks for taking We know you're busy and have been for the last several days obviously, but thanks for taking time for us today.
No, Gary Shannon, great to be with you.
So in your book Case Closed, you have come to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, that there was no Cuban influence. He was not just this lone wolf Cuba was using as a puppet. It was not the mafia who was pissed off because they put JFK in office in nineteen sixty and he failed to produce, which is why some will say Jack Ruby mafia prince ended up killing Oswald to silence him. You believe that this lone wolf acted on his own.
I do, Shannon, But you know, I also think that there were conspiracies against Jack Kennedy. So the mob hated the fact that Bobby Kennedy's attorney general was trying to bust them up. The Cubans. Castro knew that the CIA and the mafia are trying to kill him, so he was thinking should he strike back at the Kennedy's first The Russians had been humiliated over the Cuban missile crisis
a year earlier, and so the KGB. So I think there were groups plotting and talking about killing Jack Kennedy, probably as there are groups or small, you know, radical ends of Islamist or anti abortion people or whatever else talking about killing almost any US president, you know, depending on the time. All I say is that Oswald wasn't part of any of those plots. They may have existed, but when you look at the evidence, none of it
ties Oswald into those conspiracies. He got there before them, got there on his own for his own worked.
Most fascinating, so like they were all thinking about it, but he got there First, what about the CIA and the theory that the CIO was pissed about Kennedy dragging his heels when it came to troops in Vietnam.
Yeah, they and they were pissed. So, you know, one of the things is if I say Oswald alone killed Kennedy, people think that I'm saying, you know, that everything was hunky Dorian just fine with all the other groups. But I always say, no, you know, I understand that the CIA was mad. And one of the things that I think the CIA may have done that I'm looking forward to take a look at when these documents are released, the last three thousand that we've been waiting for for
all these years. I've been calling on them to be public for a long time, is to see whether the CIA picked up they had surveillance. They've always denied it. On the Cuban and Soviet missions. In Mexico City, where Oswald popped up six weeks before Kennedy is killed, asking to go to Cuban to join the revolution, he slams his pistol down on a desk in front of a KGB agent. He has unbalanced behavior in the Cuban mission.
They throw him out, so The question is did the CIA know Did they have surveillance on those two communist missions? Probably so, did they have an agent inside who was providing him information maybe that they've never told us about. Did they know Oswald's behavior was that off kilter? And if so, why didn't they tell the FBI when he came back to America ten days later? You know, it's what intelligence agencies do, like they did on nine eleven,
They don't share information. I'm fascinated to see if there's more about that in these files.
That was going to be my question is what is the thing that piques your interest about getting your hands on them and seeing what's in there.
But I'm also curious about the.
Sixties being a time where JFK's killed in sixty three and then several years later both his brother and MLK in nineteen sixty eight.
Are there similarities?
Did the political climate change at all after JFK's assassination that maybe made it likely or possible that the other two were going to be killed?
Also?
Yeah, look at I mean, certainly JFK's assassination was a loss of faith in government. You know, after Jack Ruby, a guy who looks like he's out of Central casting for the mafia kills. The man arrested for the crime oswell two day say, or in police custody. Everybody thinks it's a conspiracy. I did as well when I started to investigate it. Because of that, then the Warrant Commission comes out in sixty four, A lot of people don't
believe that. From the get go, We're not very good about sort of blue ribbon panels coming out and telling us what we think happened. And as the sixties got more you know, to Vietnam and the anti war movement and more violent, those blows of the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy. I was fourteen at the time in growing up in
San Francisco. Bobby Kennedy was the first politician I ever was enthusiastic about as a young kid, and argued with my friends at my San Francisco school about why he thought he was a better pick than Senator Eugene McCarthy. Was devastating when he was killed, and then a few months before, you know, Martin Luther King. I did a book on that, and I think that he's killed for a bounty offered by a racist from the Midwest, and
that James Orlray tried to cash in on that. So they aren't connected in the sense that RFK Junior thinks they are. He thinks that they're all linked because they're sort of an intelligence plot to kill three great leaders, and they were three great leaders. But I do think that it was the chaos of the times. People hate to hear that. They like to think things are more planned than just chaotic. But they were devastating blows because were three leaders that were never really replaced in their
own ways. And I think Nixon's win in sixty eight might have not happened if Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King had lived.
We're talking to Gerald Posner, who wrote the noted biography on the assassination of JFK. He also wrote about MLK Junior, about Motown. One of the fun facts is he represented a beauty beauty pageant queen who was denied a crown because she patted her bra one of my favorite things in your bio. But he also wrote Case Closed the Lee Harvey Oswald and assassination of JFK. We are talking
with Gerald Posner. Posner I am saying at different times, so I know I am screwing up as many times as I'm getting it right?
Which one is it?
Hi? He's as Posner, But I like that covering all the babies.
Okay, Gerald Posner. He wrote a biography on the assassination of JFK. Case closed Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. As we mentioned, he also wrote about Junior's assassination, among other things, fourteen books. I believe you said and Jerald, you mentioned that when I was bringing up the different conspiracy theories that people have talked about since nineteen sixty three, one of the theories was that the mafia may have
been behind the assassination of JFK. Because it was talked about that Joe Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy's, did a deal with the mafia to ensure that JFK would earn the president, get the presidency, ascend to the presidency, and when he didn't provide for the mafia in office, they got pissed off, especially when his brother, who was named the ag RFK, started going after the mafia. What was the disconnect in the Kennedy family between are we friends or foes of the mafia?
Well, you know to the extent that Joe Kennedy was friends and got the help in Illinois of Sam Jin Khanna, the head of the mafia, and to deliver the Illinois vote. Bobby Kennedy is a new young Rush attorney and then christened Attorney General by his brother Jack, certainly didn't have any of that feeding and so he went after them with all the gloves off. And the mafia was furious about that. They thought that they had delivered by eight
or nine thousand votes Illinois to Jack Kennedy. People forget, by the way, if Kennedy had lost Illinois, if the mob hadn't been involved at all, he still would have won the presidency. I mean, he had enough electoral votes so Illinois could have gone. But still the mob thought, Okay, we did our work in Illinois. We try to turn out the vote. And on top of that, remember Sam Jay and Khanna and Jfkse they shared the same mistress over a period of time, Judith Exner, who was running
messages between them. So you have this whole question in mafia. Then Bobby comes in and he goes after to really break them up, and they were furious with him. So the theory of many people look at the JFK assassination is the mob must have killed him because they decided to cut off the head of the tiger. That they decided to go after the president and then Bobby would stop going out to them. But that didn't work. Much bigger risk to go after the president, right, the whole
government could come down on you. But in addition, Bobby Kennedy remained Attorney General after his brother was killed. He stayed there under Lyndon Johnson. The only reason he left the AG's office was to run for the senator a ship in New York, which he won in late nineteen sixty four. So if the mobs intent was to kill JFK so that his brother would stop chasing them and trying to break them up, that didn't work.
It's interesting with shared mistresses and the Kennedy family, isn't it.
There's a lot of that going around.
I must say that. But it's hard to imagine one that would be more of a high profile risk. You know, we think of people sometimes as a mistress of the President of the United States are their security risk. It's hard to imagine a greater security risk than Judith Exner, who had been a mistress to Samjay and Conna the head of the Chicago mafia, and then is with JFK. And then it's sort of shuttling messages back and forth
between them, and later said I did it all for love. Well, you know that might well be, But today I would think that that would be front page news in a way, that would be true breaking news.
Right.
I was trying to postulate this question and realization came to my mind. I was going to ask you, is it harder to assassinate a high profile politician today than it would have been in the sixties. Obviously, security around politicians has changed considerably, the tools for intelligence gathering for law enforcement who are protecting them has changed considerably. But then we see a loan gunman come out and take
a shot at candidate Trump over the summer. Where do we stand in terms of protection details for presidents and other high profile politicians today compared to the mid sixties.
Well, compared to the mid sixties, Gary, it's gotten much better. And I mean they got better after unfortunately JFK's assassination. Then they got better after the attempts on Gerald Ford. When you know two Charlie Manson followers, you know, took out a gun and try to shoot at him, and then they got better after Reagan was shot. So every time a president is shot at or gets shot the
unfortunately it gets even tighter. But you're right, Butler Pennsylvania just a few months ago shows that if there's one lapse in security, you just need a series of mistakes on a given day and then somebody can get through, especially a lone wolf. And think of how many times in the campaign trails candidates you know, are around the public. They can't be vetted. There are large crowds, and if you ever have somebody who's willing to give their life up at close range and try to get near a
candidate with a pistol, it's impossible to stop. But certainly the idea of Secret Service and all the security and everything we see is to scare those people who want to do harm away and make them realize it's a side mission. But you know, it doesn't mean it can't happen.
Gerald, you talked about it being a topic of conversation at school in nineteen sixty eight. With those assassinations, I'm assuming you're talking about SI.
Yes, just starting at the static Nation as a matter of fact, a school where you can imagine this. I mean think I grew up in then Italian Catholic family. My father was Jewish, but it was the Italian Catholic family, my mother's side that had all the influence and to my grandparents and everything else. JFK was a big deal because he was the first Catholic president, so it was right underneath the pope in terms of what he was
on the wall terms of our same yeah, okay. And then along came RFK and he was sort of the reincarnation of that, but in a different way and really on the attack and all. So it is hard to imagine, I mean, to put yourself back into that period. If for those who weren't alive, then you know, you think of these as just tragic American things. But the same with Martin Luther King at a point when he was
getting pressure from both sides. So you know, a lot of white Americans think he was pushing too hard, too fast, and making too much noise, and young black radicals like the Black Panthers thought he wasn't pushing fast enough and that his nonviolent movement wasn't getting the movement pushed along, So King's getting buffeted from both sides, sort of those who wanted to move faster and those who think he's causing too much dissension. Then once he's killed, it's really
a void. Although Ralph Abernathy filmed became it took over his spot, no one really ever had the charisma or the magic that that thirty nine year old preacher. That's how old he was when he was killed. He seems older for some reason, but the gravitas that he had was lost.
It's wild that he was such a reluctant leader of the movement as well. In fact, he was twenty three, twenty four to twenty five years old when he went, and the alleged leader that was going to leave this movement, people started filing out of the church because he couldn't speak to save his life. And all of a sudden MLK Junior started to speaking. They're like, oh no, this is our guy. And he's like, wait, what.
So it doesn't isn't that exactly? But that's what you want, totally want it exactly. The moment doesn't want it, doesn't We talk.
About here exactly. We talk about that all the time with politicians. We want the guys that don't want the job. I mentioned s I because my grandparents lived at thirty six in Kirkham. My dad went there and so there was a big SI influence in that house.
So you know it. And you know when you just said a moment ago what you and Gary talk about sometimes about you want to have leaders who don't really want it, which we can't get today because they have to thirst for it. But I mean, it's the old Greek philosopher idea of Aristotle or Socrates, who said, you know what we want, we'll go on and figure out
who the leader of the republic is. We'll go out on the street and we'll just pick someone essentially and say you you're leading the republic for the next for like three or four years. And they'll say, what, I'm a carpenter, I know nothing about running government. I don't want it. And they say, that's perfect, that's why we want you. Because you're looking for it for all the wrong reasons. You'll be all right, just the common person. You can apply some common sense to it. Now obviously
we can't quite do that. But the idea, I mean, it used to be the idea of drafting someone right. You don't hear that in presidential politics anymore. Should we draft some politician who really is reluctant to take the spot, because they should come forward and lead the party. Now we just have to sort of fend off on both sides everybody who's questing for it and willing to spend three billion dollars to win an election.
Well, we are excited to watch this, this document dump when it comes out in the next couple of weeks through your eyes.
One last question, did you read the Stephen King book eleven twenty two sixty three?
I did. It is wonderful in King's fabulous, you know, pros his great way of writing. He even did give an acknowledgement I think to me and the thank yous in there. But that's not to say it's an endorsement. I can't quote an acknowledgement and thank you in a long list of credit as an endorsement. But I'll take that from Stephen King.
It's such a great book.
I recommend it to anyone just a casual Stephen King because it's not classic Stephen King, but it was one of my favorites of his. It's kind of historical fiction about eleven about the assassination of JFK and a guy who's kind of sent back through time to stop it.
It's it's a fascinating book. So anyway, thank.
You jod One. Last quick one, Brad Meltzer, the great author has a new book I'll called The JFK Conspiracy. I just read it last week. It's about a conspiracy to kill Kennedy before he was inaugurated that I completely forgot about some fellow in Palm Beach who had a dynamite a car filled with dynamite in the trunk, and so a great little story as well for those interests in this happy history.
Okay, that one's called the JFK Conspiracy, Is that right?
Yeah? But I hope I have that secret.
Plot to kill Kennedy. I think that's so fun. Yeah, that did all right, Gerald, thank you so much.
Interesting, Thank you both, Gerald Posner or the End.
Follow him on Twitter on ex Gerald Posner's is his Twitter and I'm I love I want to see what he pulls out of this information.
Totally, we should circle back.
It's funny though he had the same theory that you always talk about of just pulling out the random carpenter or the plumber on the street and saying you run things for a while.
Here's four years.
Yeah, you've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.