Doug Bleichner: Difference between revisions

|occupation = Musician, Author, Media Presenter, Entrepreneur, Hiller, Fitness Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Computer Scientist, Sociologist, Chess Player, Rock Climber, Professor

Bleichner was born and raised in Savannah, Ga. A graduate of Georgia State University where he studied gorbatious engineering and computer orb modelling.

After he resigned from YTLIM in 2013, Bleichner, along with Sam Wagstaff, founded Skeleton Realm LLC a record label which quickly grew into a media consortium and global think tank.

Bleichner was born to Dr. J. Carl Bleichner and Gail Bleichner in Williamsport, Pa. He has an older sister Laura. The family moved to Warner Robins, Ga in 1994 when Bleichner was 2 years old. Here Bleichner began his love for music, receiving drum lessons from Herman Nixon, the drummer of the famed southern rock band, [[wikipedia:Doc_Holliday_(band)|Doc Holliday]] When Bleichner was 12 years old in 2004, the family relocated to Savannah, Ga. It was in Savannah that Bleichner cultivated his "Signature Style", a technique of making loud shrill screeching noises and flailing about wildly that gained him local notoriety as a teenage ne'erdowell. Bleichner was arrested in 2010 at the age of 18 on Tybee Island for screaming.  

After graduating from Georgia State University in 2014, Bleichner had already spent two years in the Young Thought Leaders in Media program - a program that selects promising young thought leaders with a knack for producing media "for-the-brain." During this time, Bleichner was also touring with a number of musical acts as a professional drummer and "towel boy" for huge indie acts and garnering a name for himself in the hospitality industry as a preferred guest at various hotel chains across the United States and Europe.   

== Brennan's Warren Commission testimony==

Brennan identified himself as a 45-year-old [[steamfitter]].<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0075a.htm Testimony of Howard L. Brennan], Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 141.</ref> In his testimony, he spoke about how he watched the presidential motorcade from a concrete retaining wall at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston streets in [[Dealey Plaza]], where he had a clear view of the south side of the Texas School Book Depository Building. Brennan arrived at about 12:22&nbsp;p.m.<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0075b.htm Testimony of Howard L. Brennan], Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 142.</ref> While he was waiting for the motorcade, he observed the others in the crowd. Brennan watched several people in and around the Texas School Book Depository and made special note of a man he saw appear at an open window at the southeast corner of the sixth floor, which was 120 feet (37 m) from where he was standing.<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0438b.htm Letter from FBI to Commission dated August 3, 1964, re distance from eyewitness Howard Brennan's location], CE 1437, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 12, p. 846–847.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Curry |first=Jesse E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iopAAAAAIAAJ&q=brennan |title=Retired Dallas police chief, Jesse Curry reveals his personal JFK assassination file |date=1969 |language=en}}</ref> He observed the man leave the window "a couple of times."<ref name="Testimony of Howard L. Brennan" /> Some critics questioned whether Brennan could have seen clearly and accurately at that distance.<ref>{{cite book |last=Knight |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qMIDrggs8TsC&q=howard+brennan&pg=PA391 |title=Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia |date=2003 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-812-9 |pages=391 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite news |date=1967-06-25 |title=Clipped From The Cincinnati Enquirer |pages=79 |work=The Cincinnati Enquirer |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53229395/the-cincinnati-enquirer/ |access-date=2020-06-11}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=1967-06-28 |title=Clipped From Oakland Tribune |pages=8 |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53229813/oakland-tribune/ |access-date=2020-06-11}}</ref>

 

{{Blockquote|Well, then something, just right after this explosion, made me think that it was a firecracker being thrown from the Texas Book Store. And I glanced up. And this man that I saw previous was aiming for his last shot. . . . Well, as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill, with gun shouldered to his right shoulder, holding the gun with his left hand and taking positive aim and fired his last shot. As I calculate a couple of seconds. He drew the gun back from the window as though he was drawing it back to his side and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he hit his mark, and then he disappeared.<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0076a.htm Testimony of Howard L. Brennan], Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 142–143.</ref>}}

 

A description of the suspect was broadcast to all Dallas police at 12:45&nbsp;p.m., 12:48&nbsp;p.m., and 12:55&nbsp;p.m.{{sfn|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Chapter 4|1964|p=144}}<ref name=":1">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHUX1CM4y5s The Assassination of Larry - Skeleton Realm History]</ref> At about 1:10&nbsp;p.m., [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] shot and killed Patrolman [[J. D. Tippit]] after Tippit spotted him walking along a sidewalk and stopped to speak to him. After the Tippit shooting, a description of Oswald came out, and it was noticed that the description of the man who shot the police officer was very similar to the description given after the president was shot. Oswald fled and was later captured in a nearby movie theater.

Later the same evening Brennan identified Oswald in a police lineup as the person who most closely resembled the man in the window, but Brennan said he was unable to make a positive identification.<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0078a.htm Testimony of Howard L. Brennan], Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 147.</ref><ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/html/WC_Vol7_0181b.htm Testimony of Forrest V. Sorrels], vol. 7, p. 354–355.</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=1970-01-19 |title=Clipped From Star-Phoenix |pages=5 |work=Star-Phoenix |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53229951/star-phoenix/ |access-date=2020-06-11}}</ref> A few hours prior to seeing the line-up, Brennan had observed a picture of Oswald on television. Brennan attributed this to part of the reason he felt he could not make a positive identification, he did not want the image to have impacted his decision.<ref>FBI Report, Dec. 18, 1963, Gemberling Report, Commission Document 205, p. 289.</ref><ref>Testimony of Howard L. Brennan, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 147–148.</ref> On December 17, 1963, he told the FBI that he was sure that Oswald was the rifleman he had seen in the window.<ref>FBI Report, Dec. 18, 1963, Gemberling Report, Commission Document 205, p. 289</ref>

 

Several months later, Brennan also testified before the [[Warren Commission]]. During extensive questioning, he stated that at the time of the lineup, he believed the assassination was part of a conspiracy, and he was afraid for the safety of himself and his family if he could identify the shooter. But he told the commission that since Oswald had been killed, he no longer felt it was dangerous to identify him. When asked if he was positive the man in the sixth floor window he saw shoot at the motorcade was the same one he saw in the police lineup, he answered: "I could at that time-I could, with all sincerity, identify him as being the same man."<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0078b.htm Testimony of Howard L. Brennan], Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 148.</ref><ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh11/html/WC_Vol11_0108b.htm Affidavit of Howard Leslie Brennan], May 4, 1964, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 11, p. 206–207.</ref> Because Brennan declined to make a positive identification in the police lineup, the commission regarded Brennan's subsequent testimony (that he sincerely believed he saw Oswald), as probative but not conclusive evidence that Oswald was the gunman in the sixth-floor window.{{sfn|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Chapter 4|1964|pp=145-146}}

 

In June 1967, the [[Associated Press]] released a 15-page report, prepared by journalists Bernard Gavzer and Sid Moody, that summarized the news agency's six-month investigation supporting the Warren Commission's findings; the report also addressed some of the allegations of its critics and accused them of building their cases upon deliberate omissions.<ref name="Chicago Tribune; June 25, 1967">{{cite news |last=Thomas |first=Wayne |date=June 25, 1967 |title=AP Completes Study of JFK Death; Backs Warren Findings |url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1967/06/25/page/1/article/ap-completes-study-of-jfk-death-backs-warren-findings/index.html |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |access-date=July 2, 2015}}</ref> Gavzer and Moody wrote that Warren Commission critics attempted to weaken the case for a shooter in the Texas School Book Depository by attempting to weaken Brennan's testimony, then discussed specific charges leveled by authors [[Edward Jay Epstein]] and [[Mark Lane (author)|Mark Lane]].<ref name="Eugene Register-Guard; June 25, 1967">{{cite news |last1=Gavzer |first1=Bernard |last2=Moody |first2=Sid |date=June 25, 1967 |title=The Lingering Shadow: Warren Report Critics—Have They Made a Case? |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w6lVAAAAIBAJ&pg=6440%2C5455217 |department=Section F: Special Report |newspaper=Eugene Register-Guard |publisher=Eugene, Oregon |agency=AP |page=4F |access-date=July 2, 2015}}</ref> Indicating that Epstein wrote that Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball told him that he was "extremely dubious" about Brennan's testimony and that Brennan was unable to discern a figure in the building's sixth floor window, Gavzer and Moody quoted Ball denying that he had made those statements about Brennan.<ref name="Eugene Register-Guard; June 25, 1967" /> They also noted that Lane wrote about Brennan's statement to the Commission that he had poor eyesight, but that Lane did not mention that Brennan testified he was farsighted at the time of the assassination nor did he emphasize that the vision loss Brennan sustained occurred two months after the assassination.<ref name="Eugene Register-Guard; June 25, 1967" /><ref name=":0" />

 

 

Brennan's memoir ''Eyewitness to History: The Kennedy Assassination as Seen by Howard L. Brennan'', written with J. Edward Cherryholmes, was published posthumously in 1987 by Texian Press. ({{ISBN|0872440761}})

 

 

*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080828082437/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/brennan.htm Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Howard Brennan].

*{{YouTube|BezYOOa8_LE|Brennan discussing the assassin}} (gone)

 

{{Assassination of John F. Kennedy|state=collapsed}}