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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 5:59am | IP Logged
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Just heard the news that fellow board member Gary Mack passed away on Wednesday (7/15) at the age of 68.
For those of you that may not be aware, Gary was heavily involved in the JFK assassination research community and for the past several years served as the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.
Here's the story from the Dallas Morning News:
Gary Mack, curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza and a nationally known authority on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy who once influenced a congressional inquiry on the subject, died Wednesday. He was 68.
He had been suffering a “rare and aggressive” form of cancer, according to his wife, Karin Strohbeck, with whom he lived in Arlington.
Mack joined the museum in 1994 after a career in radio and television. He had long professed a belief, or at least a suspicion, that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in killing the president.
“As conspiracy theorists like to say, you’re either a lone-nutter or a CT — conspiracy theorist,” Mack once said.
Despite his “CT” leanings, those who believe Oswald acted alone were among Mack’s staunchest admirers, who respected his open-mindedness and the fact that he embarked, often aggressively, on detailed missions to debunk conspiracy theories as the best way of reaching the truth. That alone left him at odds with many in the conspiracy community.
“I doubt if anybody anywhere knew more details about all aspects of the JFK assassination and aftermath than Gary,” said Hugh Aynesworth, author of November 22, 1963: Witness to History, who at the time of the assassination was a young reporter for The Dallas Morning News. Aynesworth is among those who believe Oswald acted alone.
Mack helped unravel “some of the more ridiculous offerings,” Aynesworth said. “His work at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza was beyond exemplary and will be sorely missed. Within hours of his death I had three phone calls from European newsmen who were stunned and planning coverage.”
Gerald Posner, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in writing perhaps the definitive book on the assassination, Case Closed, said he had known Mack for 23 years.
“He was always a remarkable source of information about the case and a wise guide who helped me avoid the many investigative pitfalls and black holes of JFK’s murder,” Posner said. “That we did not agree on the role and sole culpability of Oswald did not prevent him from always finding the time in his otherwise busy schedule to answer my many queries. His top priority was simply searching for the truth in the case. And his solid stewardship at the Sixth Floor was fueled by his passion about the case. The one thing about which I think both conspiracy theorists and ‘Oswald alone’ proponents can agree is that Gary Mack has died far too early and he will be missed by many.”
Dave Perry, a former insurance adjuster and one of Mack’s closest friends, collaborated often in debunking theories.
“The Sixth Floor was absolutely a dream job for Gary,” said Perry, who called it “the job of his life.”
With Perry’s help, Mack proved in the early 1990s that a story naming a deceased Dallas police officer as the grassy knoll gunman was bogus. A young man named Ricky White said he could prove that his late father, Roscoe White, had fired the final, fatal shot as part of a conspiracy acted out with Jack Ruby, who gunned down Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police station two days after the assassination. Aynesworth later credited Mack and Perry with one of the more important put-downs in the history of assassination research, saying, “Dave and Gary disemboweled the Ricky White story.”
Many credited Mack with knowing more basic facts about Kennedy’s death than anyone.
“It’s not that he’s academically, archivally trained,” the late Jeff West, then the Sixth Floor director, said in 1999. “Its just that his expertise is amazing. Somebody can bring in a shoe box of old photographs, and just by looking at them, he can tell you the time, the location and who the people are in the pictures. He has so much in his head, I’d like to figure out a way to download his head. Gary’s knowledge of the subject is nothing short of encyclopedic.”
Mack’s reputation extended well beyond Dallas.
“While it’s fair to say that Gary leans toward a conspiracy, I never thought he was paranoid about it or fixed on one theory to the exclusion of all others,” G. Robert Blakey, the chief counsel and staff director of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, once told the Morning News.
“A lot of conspiracy theorists focus on one subject and then exclude any consideration of any other subject. They assimilate the evidence in light of their thesis, and any evidence inconsistent with that thesis is largely ignored. Gary has never been that way. He’s tended to apply the same thesis whether the evidence is consistent or inconsistent. He has the attitude of a scientist.”
Blakey once credited Mack with playing a key role in putting together evidence that, in 1979, prompted the committee to conclude with a “95 percent or greater” degree of probability that a conspiracy existed. The finding had to do with recordings found in old Dallas police files. Mack came up with the theory that the assassination might have been recorded by Dallas police and brought it to Blakey’s attention.
Although it remains controversial and was later rebutted by the National Academy of Sciences, Mack’s idea led to this: A recording taken from a microphone strapped to an officer’s motorcycle in Dealey Plaza and transferred to a Dictabelt machine at police headquarters indicated there were four shots fired at the president, according to the acoustic sound study conducted by the House committee.
That prompted the committee to conclude that, of the four shots fired, three came from behind and one from the grassy knoll — which missed. If four shots were fired, the committee reasoned, there had to have been two gunmen.
The Warren Commission concluded that only three shots were fired and that all came from the $12.95 Mannlicher-Carcano mail-order rifle owned by Oswald and found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, which now houses the museum.
The best lesson he ever learned about the assassination, Mack said, “is not to get locked into anything … There’s a lot of nonsense out there about the Kennedy assassination. Part of our job is to clear away some of that stuff and get some straight answers.”
Born in Oak Park, Ill., Mack was given the name Lawrence Alan Dunkel. During his days as a disc jockey, he changed his name to Gary Mack at the request of a radio station program manager, who felt it would be more catchy.
Family members say Mack inherited from his father, a salesman for Ohio Match Co. and then LaChoy Foods and Tasty Foods, a speaking voice worthy of an anchorman.
Mack is survived by his wife; his sister, Susan Coleman of Las Vegas, Nev.; his son, Stephen Dunkel of Arlington, Va.; and his grandchildren, Nolan and Violet Dunkel. Details on services are pending.
Edited by Paul Haney on 17 July 2015 at 6:54am
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sriv94
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 8:24am | IP Logged
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Damn. That stinks. We'll miss you, Gary.
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aaronk
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 9:01am | IP Logged
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Wow, that's terrible news. I had no idea that Gary lived only 45 minutes from me.
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Aaron Kannowski
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Yah Shure
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 9:34am | IP Logged
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I'm really saddened by this news. Gary's encyclopedic recollections from the radio side of Top 40's golden age helped answer or debunk so many of our own record-related "conspiracy theories." He will be sorely missed.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 10:49am | IP Logged
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A little more info about Gary...
He worked as a DJ at KRIZ in Phoenix from 1967-69 (as "Larry Dean"). He then moved to KRUX in Phoenix (as "Larry Dean" from 1969-71 and as "Gary Mack" from 1972-73). He then moved on to KLEO in Wichita, Kansas. He appeared in numerous TV documentaries on the JFK assassination over the years. I first became aware of his work on the (in)famous "badgeman" photograph as shown on the series The Men Who Killed Kennedy in the early 1990s.
BTW, he was NOT the same "Gary Mack" that worked at KHJ in the 1960s.
Edited by Paul Haney on 17 July 2015 at 7:51pm
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aaronk
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 12:46pm | IP Logged
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I haven't watched the entire video, but here is an interview with Gary, filmed in 2003.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bio-dA9g1rs
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Aaron Kannowski
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Santi Paradoa
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 4:51pm | IP Logged
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That is awful news. Gary's contributions to this board were
always very useful and informative. He certainly was
knowledgeable (I always liked to hear about his days on the
radio from the mid '60s to the early '80s). R.I.P. Mr.
Mack.
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eriejwg
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 6:11pm | IP Logged
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So sorry to hear this news. May he be a major
contributor in Rock N Roll Heaven.
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crapfromthepast
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 6:39pm | IP Logged
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Very sad news. My condolences to his family and friends...
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 7:52pm | IP Logged
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Gary was also a member of BSN. Here's info he posted about his radio career back in 2007:
OK, here 'tis, and all were Top 40 stations:
As Larry Dean
KYSN-AM, 1964-1965, Colorado Springs, CO (weekends)
KRIZ-AM, 1967-1969, Phoenix, AZ (weekends)
KRUX-AM, 1969-1971, Phoenix, AZ (evenings)
KTAR-FM, 1971-1972, Phoenix, AZ (evenings, ass't music director)
KOOL-FM, 1972, Phoenix, AZ (weekends)
As Gary Mack
KRUX-AM, 1972-1973, Phoenix, AZ (evenings, ass't music director)
KLEO-AM, 1973-1976, Wichita, KS (mid-day, program director)
KFJZ-FM, 1976-1980, Dallas, TX (program director)
Had a great time, but eventually moved on to more stable employment.
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Steve Carras
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| Posted: 17 July 2015 at 11:23pm | IP Logged
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Sad..:( RIP G.Mack.
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KentT
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| Posted: 18 July 2015 at 5:40am | IP Logged
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A very sad loss. Quite the JFK scholar, on air talent,
and above all Top 40 Historian. The complete package.
And a superb voice.
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TomDiehl1
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| Posted: 18 July 2015 at 11:14am | IP Logged
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Really sorry to hear the news. Gary was a welcome
presence on this forum and will be deeply missed.
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 18 July 2015 at 1:55pm | IP Logged
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That is a shame. I'm sorry to hear that. I see he last
logged on here just one week ago. So sad.
Edited by Brian W. on 18 July 2015 at 2:02pm
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Underground Dub
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| Posted: 27 July 2015 at 10:11pm | IP Logged
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Very sad... a great guy.
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Topic: R.I.P. Gary Mack
