Interview with Joan d’Arc and Al Hidell of PARANOIA
John: When and how did Paranoia Magazine begin?
Joan: PARANOIA Magazine was born in 1992 out of the ‘Providence Conspiracy League’, a group of co-conspirators who met in my now defunct Providence bookstore, Newspeak. It was the only bookstore in the area back then that sold conspiracy books. Now conspiracy books are ubiquitous. One night, Al Hidell came into a Conspiracy League meeting with the idea to put some of the material in our three-ring binders into a magazine called PARANOIA. We never expected the magazine to get off the block, but some magazine distributors expressed interest and we started doing a quarterly. At first the Conspiracy Leaguers did the writing, but after the magazine got out there a bit we started getting articles from other authors; among them, Alan Cantwell, John Judge, George Andrews, R.B. Cutler, and other JFK assassination researchers.
If you look at the first four issues of PARANOIA (posted as PDFs on our website, http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/freedownloads.html), you’ll see the early tabloid style black and white covers. In fact, this style, along with the curious title, made people wonder whether we were serious or tongue-in-cheek. We like to say we were protecting ourselves from lawsuits under the “parody” clause of the Constitution. Wink. Back then we raised some eyebrows and everyone thought we were pretty much nuts, until George “Dubya” Bush put us on the map during his nightmare twice-stolen presidency. From then on, we were vindicated, unfortunately.
In 2009, after 18 years of publishing and after the 51st issue of PARANOIA, we decided to switch from magazine format to book series. The combined reasons were the magazine ‘consignment’ paradigm and the new internet economy. More than half the magazines we were paying to print were being destroyed by the chain stores. The only answer was print on demand. The new book contains content similar to the old magazine format and comes out approximately once a year. The book is a 192-page square back compendium containing 24 authors and interviewees, available either at www.paranoiamagazine.com or, if you prefer, at amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/PARANOIA-Conspiracy-Reader-Joan-dArc/dp/0615299954)
Al: One day, I brought a red binder into Joan’s Newspeak store, and I’d pasted a big picture of Lee Harvey Oswald on the front. That became a repository for various conspiracy clippings and material, and it quickly evolved into a magazine once the binder couldn’t hold any more. Joan and I invested a small amount of money to have it printed, and we took it door-to-door to various independent bookstores in the Providence area. Soon, we managed to convince a few magazine distributors to carry us, and we were on our way.
John: Can we talk about some of the conspiracies that the magazine has written about over the years Probably the most covered conspiracy in print is the Kennedy assassination. Looking back, do we really know who is responsible?
Joan: Paranoia has published numerous articles on the JFK assassination over 51 issues of the magazine, which incidentally are now held in the Poage Political archive at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. In our most recent publication, PARANOIA The Conspiracy Reader (our new book series http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/volume1.html), I discussed the JFK assassination with a man named Roderick A. MacKenzie III, who claims to have been associated with the mob in Dallas in 1963. In this exclusive interview, MacKenzie claims that he knew Lyndon Johnson’s personal so-called hitman, Mac Wallace. He further claims that Mac told him, while in a drunken stupor the day after the hit, the names of the persons on four hit teams situated in Dealey Plaza that day. Included on his list of the hit teams was Mac Wallace himself, who admitted to being posted on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD).
In fact, recent research affirms this claim. A fingerprint lifted from a carton in the “sniper’s nest” (6th floor window), labeled “unknown” in the National Archives, was definitively identified in 1998 as belonging to Mac Wallace. The website www.jfkmurdersolved.com states: “On March 9, 1998, A. Nathan Darby, A.L.C.E., a Certified Latent Fingerprint Examiner, and a member of the International Association for Identification, signed a sworn affidavit stating that he found a positive match between the “Unknown” print from Carton “A” and the 1951 print of Mac Wallace.” This information puts Lyndon Johnson right in the driver’s seat of the Kennedy assassination, although it doesn’t argue against Pentagon, CIA and Mafia involvement.
There have been a few people named for the position behind the picket fence in an area known as the “grassy knoll.” According to eyewitnesses and photographs there were at least two shooters stationed in this area. One of them was dressed like a policeman, and he shows up in a picture known as the “Badgeman” photo, which shows a dark blurry figure seemingly in uniform, with an outline of a “badge” and a puff of smoke coming over the picket fence.
The documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy by Nigel Turner, features an interview with imprisoned French mobster, Christian David, who claims three French hitmen from the Corsican Mafia were hired to do the job (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/corsicans.htm). According to David, one hitman was situated on the 6th floor of the TSBD and another on a lower floor of the Dal-Tex building. (Rod MacKenzie claims this team was supposed to be on the roof, but encountered some sort of problems.) David claims a third hitman, by the name of Lucien Sarti, was positioned on “the little hill with the wooden fence.” Sarti was dressed in some sort of uniform and took only one shot with “an explosive bullet.”
Another hit man MacKenzie mentions is a French Corsican mobster named Michael Victor Mertz. MacKenzie claims this man was just one of many Corsican mobsters who stayed in the “safe house” MacKenzie ran for the mob in Dallas. Mertz was especially difficult to please, requiring special wines and white shirts. MacKenzie claims Mac Wallace told him that Mertz was situated on the roof of the County Records Building. According to Christian David’s claim, the three Corsican hit men returned to a “safe house” and remained for about ten days, and were flown to Montreal. (Highlights of the MacKenzie interview can be found on the PARANOIA website: http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/volume1.html)
Jack Ruby was seen by many witnesses in the crowd in Dealey Plaza before and after the assassination. MacKenzie claims Jack Ruby was a shooter on the 2nd floor of the TSBD. It’s pretty certain that Mac Wallace and a Chickasaw Indian named Loy Factor were shooters from the 6th floor. Frank Sturgis, Eugene Hale Braden/Brading and Chi Chi Quintero were supposed to be on top of the Dal-Tex Building but due to some problem they were located on a lower floor. According to Marita Lorenz, Sturgis was one of the gunmen who fired on JFK. If MacKenzie is right, it was from a lower floor of the Dal-Tex Building. This means Sturgis may have been responsible for the first low shot of Kennedy’s back, or if not Sturgis, Braden/Brading is another possible shooter.
Another man named James Files, currently in federal prison for other crimes, claims to have been the lone shooter on the grassy knoll. According to James Files, he took one shot, the fatal shot, to JFK’s head. Problematically, he first claimed to have hit JFK in the left temple, then changed it to the right, which would be the correct side. Many other aspects of his story have changed over the years. Prior to airing a two-hour special on James Files, NBC and Dick Clark Productions decided to check his story. A private investigator discovered that James Files was in Chicago on November 22, 1963. When this information was told to Files, he claimed that was his twin brother, whom he also killed. NBC and Dick Clark Productions did not go forward with airing the special. (http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/files.htm)
Many witnesses also saw suspicious persons walking from the grassy knoll area, as well as two men emerging from the back of the TSBD and getting into a car. These two men were probably Loy Factor and Mac Wallace. The sad thing is, many witnesses were never called before the Warren Commission, and even sadder still, many witnesses were either intimidated by police or FBI from making witness statements (until many years later), or were silenced by untimely and unnatural deaths prior to their intention to make official statements.
Interestingly, MacKenzie claims Lee Oswald was on the hit team stationed on the 6th floor of the TSBD, but was in some sort of a trance state. This would be an indication of mind control. However, on the other hand, witnesses who worked in the TSBD have stated that Oswald was in the lunchroom on the 2nd floor eating his lunch just prior to the shooting, and was in the same lunch room just minutes after the shooting when police entered and saw him drinking a Coke. In fact, I have always been partial to the theory that Oswald was actually photographed in the doorway of the TSBD as the procession was going by. The person in the doorway not only resembles Oswald but is wearing the same denim style shirt over a white t-shirt that he was arrested in a few hours later! (http://www.whokilledjfk.net/altgens.htm). I believe this picture is a “smoking gun” that proves Oswald was the “patsy” (as he claimed) or fall guy for the assassins and was not even on the 6th floor of the TSBD.
In fact, District Attorney Jim Garrison believed it was likely Oswald standing in the doorway watching the parade. In a October 1967 Playboy interview, he stated: “The Altgens photograph indicates the very real possibility that at the moment Oswald was supposed to have been crouching in the sixth-floor window of the Depository shooting Kennedy, he may actually have been standing outside the front door watching the Presidential motorcade.” http://www.jfklancer.com/Garrison3.html
Over the years various assassination camps have developed their own theories focusing on, among other theories: (1) a Mafia hit, (2) a Texas high roller hit orchestrated by LBJ as Vice President, (3) a French Corsican mob heroin connection, (4) a CIA-Cuban connection, and (5) a CIA-military-industrial conspiracy in collusion with the mob. Of course, only a collusion of all of the above would explain the elaborately orchestrated cover-up that followed the assassination, including the autopsy room full of military brass, the doctoring of the head x-ray photographs, the sham called the Warren Commission, the purchase of the Zapruder film by Time Life, and the long-standing major media cover-up that continues to this day.
Of course, CIA hired guns like plagiarist and shill, Gerald Posner, still periodically need to peddle the ridiculous government line in books like the 1993 book, Case Closed. Notwithstanding these lies, according to a large majority of U.S. and world citizens the case is not closed. Ludicrously, Posner found his ‘evidence’ to back up the Warren Report even after the CIA provided open access to the files of heavyweight critic of the Warren Report, the late Harold Weisberg. Weisberg was pissed off, to say the least, that he opened all of his files to Posner and Posner came out with this sham of a book, which has been torn to shreds over the years by Kennedy researchers, and Posner has been recently caught again doing the sloppy work of a plagiarist.
We also now have the official government anti-conspiracy website “Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation” (http://www.america.gov/conspiracy_theories.html), where you can find the ‘real’ stories behind suspicious events to put your mind at ease. The fact that this website exists shows how bothered the government is by conspiracy theories. The website includes a small section on the JFK lone nut theory, which states, in total (this is not a summary): “Perhaps more conspiracy theories surround Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John Kennedy in 1963, than anyone in American history. The Soviet KGB, Cuba, the mafia, the CIA, and others have been blamed for killing Kennedy, but all evidence indicates that Oswald acted alone.” The statement then links to a blog page by Todd Leventhal, the Obama administration’s anti-conspiracy czar, who states that Vincent Bugliosi’s latest book, Reclaiming History, has pretty much closed the case and clinched the lone nut argument, yet again!: http://blogs.america.gov/rumors/2009/07/21/lee-harvey-oswald-lone-assassin.
When will these people quit Answer: they won’t. That’s why the job of the conspiracy theorist is never ending!
Al: I think Joan’s answer pretty much covers it. I would only add this comment, for the JFK skeptics out there: In the 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that JFK was “likely” killed as the result of a conspiracy. Would you consider the U.S. House of Representatives a bunch of conspiracy nuts Also, even if 99% of the claims conspiracy theorists make about the Kennedy assassination are completely false, you would still have 1%, which means there was some sort of conspiracy.
John: Is there any correlation between the John Kennedy assassination and the assassination of Robert Kennedy?
Al: There is correlation in that “official” stories of both assassinations are full of holes, literally too many (bullet) holes in the case of RFK. Both official narratives claim the great man was killed by a lone, deranged, assassin. In actuality, both Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan were just one piece of a larger conspiracy, though they may not have been aware of the larger plot. I suspect that poor Sirhan was never “in the loop.” On the other hand, Oswald must have had at least a compartmentalized knowledge of the conspiracy since he yelled, “I’m just a patsy!” in one of his brief public appearances while in custody.
Also, the assassinations share some possible culprits, including the CIA and organized crime. In fact, Sirhan Sirhan’s defense attorney had just finished representing one of the CIA’s main organized crime contacts, Johnny Roselli, prior to representing Sirhan. This might explain why he didn’t get a particularly vigorous defense. Roselli, by the way, was killed in 1976, before he could testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
John: Can we now speak about MKULTRA and brainwashing. Could you explain what MKULTRA was?
Joan: Sure. In collusion with Nazis brought into the U.S. by the intelligence apparatus after World War II, the CIA MK-ULTRA mind control program was responsible for the development of what was called, after the Monarch butterfly, “Monarch” trauma-based conditioning. MK-ULTRA is now known to have involved over 40 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada, and many other types of institutions, think tanks and civilian agencies from the 1950s to the 1970s. In fact, the CIA has settled lawsuits with many victims in Canada and the U.S., so this program was definitely real.
In the mind control literature, reference to a Manchurian Candidate (from the film starring Frank Sinatra), now refers to a person with psychiatrically created Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), or the preferred term nowadays, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The person displays multiple distinct identities known as “alters,” with deep memory loss of the other identities. The ability to create DID was first discovered when American POWs returned from Korea “brainwashed” by the Chinese to accept Communist allegiance.
Monarch programming creates DID by inducing excruciating trauma, which causes the mind to “dissociate” or fracture. From birth, children born into sacrificial cults are tortured and maimed by their own sadistic guardians in order to cause this fracturing of the personality. According to both first person and “fictionalized” reports, the child’s “handler” creates several layers of alter personalities with various pseudonyms, some of whom will be called upon to handle the pain, and others who will be called upon to perform various deep cover activities, which include reportedly, as government spies, assassins, drug runners, hypnotic couriers, human recorders, and sex slaves. The “alters” are called upon without the awareness of the primary personality; the layered effect induced by drugs and trauma essentially creates a condition of amnesia in the primary personality.
The link that modernizes ancient bloodline cults is the now well-documented MK-ULTRA program. Incidentally, a few of these spychiatrists have actually been identified as Dr. Green: the notorious Nazi Josef Mengele; Dr. White: Scottish mind control programmer Ewen Cameron; and Dr. Black: Monarch survivor Cisco Wheeler’s father. For those interested in more information on the subject, PARANOIA has published several articles and interviews by Canadian cult survivor, Beth Goobie, including “The Network of Stolen Consciousness” (http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/network.html), and “The Choosing Ones” (http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/choosingones.html). Beth was brought up in a cult she has referred to as “The Kin” (but this was not their real name) in a town just south of Toronto called Guelph. She’s known for her extraordinary ability to recall and describe the specific occult methods used by her programmers. Another extraordinary resource is the S.M.A.R.T. newsletter (Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today) (http://ritualabuse.us).
John: Is there any correlation between the Manson Murders and the murders of the Zodiac Killer?
Al: That is one of many theories about the unsolved Zodiac killings. There is a bit of circumstantial evidence for this theory: The killings occurred in the same general location and time period, and in both cases the killer(s) left messages at the crime scenes. In 1988, the deputy district attorney in Solano county at the time of the murders, Frank Fowles, told author Ed Sanders (The Family) that he suspected the Manson and the Zodiac murders were connected, possibly through mutual connections to a Bay Area satanic society. However, as far as I am aware, no hard evidence has ever emerged to prove this suspected connection.
We published an interesting article by Curt Rowlett about the Zodiac killer back in Issue 43 of PARANOIA, which is still available for purchase on our website (http://paranoiamagazine.com/backissues.html). For your readers who may not be familiar with the case, the Zodiac killings began in the mid-1960s in the San Francisco Bay Area. The killer sent dozens of taunting letters to police and the media. What’s particularly fascinating is that his letters contained coded “ciphers,” some of which have remained unsolved. Zodiac himself claimed that in one of his coded letters, he actually identified himself by name.
Another strange aspect to the case is the killer’s chosen garb. According to the only known person to survive a Zodiac attack, he wore a long rectangular black hood featuring a white “cross-within-a-circle” symbol. According to footprints left at the scene, he was wearing a kind of shoe issued to members of the U.S. military. Rowlett aptly describes this guy as “a creepy combination of maniacal mathematician and avant-garde artist.”
Officially, the Zodiac killer killed at least five people. (The killer claimed a total of 37 victims in one of his correspondence.) What makes this case particularly frightening is that in one of his last verified letters, he said he was going to begin disguising his murders as ordinary deaths. True or false, the statement established a kind of permanent, low-level state of paranoia in the San Francisco area. Which, I believe, was his intent.
John: Was, or is David Kaczynski connected to the Zodiac Murders
Al: No. Kaczynski has been cleared of any involvement by the FBI and the San Francisco Police Department, based upon fingerprint and handwriting comparisons, and the fact that David Kaczynski is known to have been outside of California on the dates of most of the Zodiac killings.
John: Have you ever chosen not to cover a particular story in Paranoia Magazine
Joan: Yes, absolutely. If it’s poorly written or poorly argued, or if we don’t consider it in the vein of conspiracy research. In other words, if it’s just a rant, although in the early days we did have a “Rants!” section!
That being said, we’ve never felt it’s our job to distinguish between legitimacy and lunacy. The work must be well-written, contain sources and references, and be “internally consistent.” It doesn’t necessarily have to “match” any template external to it, although sometimes it does. It depends on the researcher. Much of the work in the magazine does include mainstream sources, but other times the sources for a particular research article might be other conspiracy related works. In this sense, it doesn’t have to match the looking glass world, the “normal” world to us kooks. We don’t have a problem with a really weird conspiracy theory that most people would disbelieve, mainly because it’s not our job to evaluate theories according to our own private worldview. How could we publish a magazine like PARANOIA if every article had to match our own particular beliefs That would be a personal zine, or worse, it would be boring, wouldn’t it
If you mean have we ever chosen not to cover a story due to its content, yes, although I don’t think the reason would be the subject matter alone. I think that any subject matter is capable of being approached in an intelligent way without being hateful or racist. On the other hand, PARANOIA has published an article or two on very untouchable subjects like Holocaust Revisionism and the Protocols of Zion. PARANOIA is not straight media reporting, it’s really a niche conspiracy journal. And probably an important point too is that we have always rejected the political paths of “left” and “right.” Due to the misunderstanding of our open editorial policy there have been rumors of us being “right wing.” In fact, during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the Washington Post lumped us with the “mid-west” militia groups, not checking the masthead that says we’re from liberal Rhode Island, or perhaps purposely planting that rumor. Rumors of us being “right wing” are unfounded, although we might have to admit to being “wing nuts.”
Al: Our writers are passionate about their ideas, but they generally don’t fit the stereotype of the wild-eyed, rambling kook. That being said, the line between legitimacy and lunacy is a fuzzy one, and Joan and I do have some differing opinions about what constitutes loony. I think these differences are what make PARANOIA such an interesting read. Again, our editorial decisions come down to writing quality and internal consistency, as opposed to a fear that a particular topic is “too hot to handle.”
John: Have you ever been threatened by a cult for divulging information about the cult?
Joan: Well, not threatened, really. But we’ve received some unfriendly responses from cult-like groups over the years, including the Scientologists, the Church of the Subgenius, and The Family.
In one incident, after publication of two articles about Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard’s Babalon Working Ritual (“Aleister Crowley, Midnight Messenger” by Mike Culkin, Issue 21, and “Science Fiction as Manipulation” by Robert Guffey, Issue 27), the Scientologist’s media relation’s office insisted we print a letter in our letters section (issue 28, still in print). The letter attached a retraction which explained that Hubbard went in to “save a woman” (Scarlet Woman and Great Whore, Marjorie Cameron) from the Satanists, which was the same old retraction they’d been sending out to every media outlet for thirty years.
In another memorable case, the Church of the Subgenius (a parody cult that actually has become a cult) warned PARANOIA not to publish Robert Guffey’s article (“Synchronistic Linguistics in The Matrix”, Issue 22, http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/matrix.html) about the Canadian Bob Dobbs because he had stolen the name of their cartoon leader. While not a threat, per se, they did warn that their attorneys would be contacting us. We ignored them, went on to publish several articles and interviews with the Canadian Bob Dobbs, both in print and on the internet, and no lawyer ever contacted us. (See also: “Finnegans Awake! Or Who is Driving our Luxury Vehicle” http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/bobdobbsawake.html, also published in PARANOIA Issue 44 and “The Death of the Matrix”, http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/bobdobbs.html).
In another cultish incident around 1994-1996, we had several responses to an article Al Hidell wrote on River Phoenix and the cult his family was involved in, known as The Family. The article (“Family Affair: The Cult that Haunted River Phoenix”, PARANOIA Issue 6, available in print) discussed the sexual promiscuity of the group, noting that River Phoenix had stated that he was forced to have sex with other children when he was under the age of ten. The article also speculated on the group’s intelligence ties, and was based on, among other sources, Alex Constantine’s Hustler article, “Family Ties.” Following this, we printed a rebuttal article by a member of The Family, Phil Edwards (“We Are Family: A River Rebuttal” in PARANOIA Issue 8, http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/PDFs/Para08.pdf ), which claimed the Christian missionary communal group was based in fifty countries, did not condone sex with children, and discounted any intelligence ties.
Issue 10 then featured a rebuttal to this official Family rebuttal (“Family Values”, http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/PDFs/Para10.pdf), by Alex Constantine, arguing that Argentine authorities had outlawed the group on charges that they had sex with children, prompting their change of name to “The Family,” after which Argentine authorities looked the other way and let them stay. I have provided the links to the sold out back issues containing these articles, since the subject matter is too deep to provide a full report here.
(You will note that there is a background watermark on these vintage PARANOIA PDFs. This watermark does not print out if you download the PDF. Issue 6 is not a posted vintage PARANOIA PDF because it is still in print and available for sale: http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/backissues.html)
Al: But the article was simply a matter of fairness and journalistic principles, not threats or intimidation. In that sense, The Family behaved no differently than, say, an oil industry association responding to coverage of the BP Gulf oil spill that they felt was slanted or inaccurate.
John: Any stories about CIA connection to OTO
Joan: I recently interviewed Craig Heimbichner, author of Blood on the Altar: The Secret History of the World’s Most Dangerous Secret Society, on that topic in our latest book, PARANOIA The Conspiracy Reader. Craig told me that one of the key OTO leaders, Marcelo Motta of Brazil, lost control of the rights of a branch of the OTO in the U.S. courts to its current leader, William Breeze. According to Heimbichner, the whole operation was a coup engineered by the CIA, and that “Motta apparently felt the powers didn’t see him as a ‘player’”. Heimbichner claims there’s much overlap between the Masonic Grand Lodge, the CIA and the OTO. He says the OTO is now a very litigious and lawyerly group, contrary to their freewheeling image, so we will just leave it at that!
* * * * *
Joan d’Arc and Al Hidell are the co-publishers of PARANOIA The Conspiracy Reader. They are currently at work on Volume 2 of the new book series, expected out in early 2011. You may purchase Volume 1 of the series via paypal at: http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/volume1.html). Or you may mail a check or money order for $17.00 to: POB 1041, Providence, RI 02901. You may also include a check for Volume 2 in the amount of $17. To get on the PARANOIA mailing list for post cards and updates, please send your name and address either to the POB above or to conspiracyreader@gmail.com. For all you paranoids out there, please note PARANOIA is not in the mailing list business, has never traded or sold its mailing list, and has always refused when asked.
See various interviews and information on PARANOIA’s new Paramedia page: http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/paramedia.html
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