HSCA Chief Counsel Richard A. Sprague has died (95 years old)

[Gerry Down]

The first HSCA chief counsel Richard Sprague has died. He was removed as HSCA chief counsel very early on when he started probing too deep for some into the JFK assassination. His deputy chief counsel Robert K. Tanenbaum said that had Sprague been allowed to stay on, the truth of the JFK assassination might have been revealed. Tanenbaum resigned in protest when Sprague was removed and the HSCA descended into a shambles thereafter. 

https://www.inquirer.com/news/richard-sprague-obit-death-philly-20210405.html

RIP

[Charles Collins]

The first HSCA chief counsel Richard Sprague has died. He was removed as HSCA chief counsel very early on when he started probing too deep for some into the JFK assassination. His deputy chief counsel Robert K. Tanenbaum said that had Sprague been allowed to stay on, the truth of the JFK assassination might have been revealed. Tanenbaum resigned in protest when Sprague was removed and the HSCA descended into a shambles thereafter. 

https://www.inquirer.com/news/richard-sprague-obit-death-philly-20210405.html

RIP

Bugliosi provides an interesting account of how things went down. (See pages 371-375 of “Reclaiming History”). In this account, Sprague resigned when it was expressed to him that the needed congressional votes to continue the investigation were unlikely if he were to stay on. In other words, if Sprague had not resigned, the whole investigation probably would have been abandoned.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Bugliosi provides an interesting account of how things went down. (See pages 371-375 of “Reclaiming History”). In this account, Sprague resigned when it was expressed to him that the needed congressional votes to continue the investigation were unlikely if he were to stay on. In other words, if Sprague had not resigned, the whole investigation probably would have been abandoned.

Yes, from what I've read the HSCA was in a complete shambles BEFORE Sprague resigned as personality conflicts and turf-battles rendered it useless. If you have the chairman, Henry Gonzalez (who was in the motorcade in Dallas during the assassination and who believed there was a conspiracy), and the chief investigator incapable of getting along on basic issues then it's not going to work. End of story. They couldn't agree even on simple aspects like funding. If Sprague refused to leave the whole enterprise would have collapsed. Gonzalez himself resigned a little later.

[Charles Collins]

Yes, from what I've read the HSCA was in a complete shambles BEFORE Sprague resigned as personality conflicts and turf-battles rendered it useless. If you have the chairman, Henry Gonzalez (who was in the motorcade in Dallas during the assassination and who believed there was a conspiracy), and the chief investigator incapable of getting along on basic issues then it's not going to work. End of story. They couldn't agree even on simply aspects like funding. If Sprague refused to leave the whole enterprise would have collapsed. Gonzalez himself resigned a little later.

From what Bugliosi wrote, Sprague insisted on using secret (illegal?) recordings of the interviews of the witnesses and voice stress analysis on the recordings. This upset the Congress persons and they decided to vote against continuing the investigation unless Sprague resigned.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

From what Bugliosi wrote, Sprague insisted on using secret (illegal?) recordings of the interviews of the witnesses and voice stress analysis on the recordings. This upset the Congress persons and they decided to vote against continuing the investigation unless Sprague resigned.

A number of conspiracy advocates like to point to that so-called "first investigation" - the one led by Sprague and with people like Robert Tannenbaum and Gaeton Fonzi - as being stopped because they were uncovering CIA involvement. But if you look at what they were doing it wasn't a investigation, it was a prosecution. Fonzi himself said that he wasn't a conspiracy theorist; he admitted he was a true blue conspiracy proponent who was convinced that elements of the CIA were behind it. And Tannenbaum made all sorts of reckless claims - he once said he saw a film of Oswald with Ferrie at an anti-Castro training camp outside New Orleans; no such video has ever been produced - that turned out to be false.

I guess if you're convinced that "the CIA" was behind it, you'll pretty much accept any measures or practices, civil liberties be damned.