I didn't think I would be posting again about the Wilfried Huismann documentary Rendezvous with Death (covered on this blog here and here) but Barbara Lautenbach yesterday posted some information from FOCUS magazine at alt.assassination.jfk.

According to Lothar Buchholz, the German Kennedy researcher and author of the book Labyrinth der Wahrheiten - Todesschüsse auf Kennedy (Labyrinth of Truths – The Fatal Shooting of Kennedy,) which, not reading German, I have not seen, most of the "evidence" in this documentary falls apart upon examination.

In front of the camera, the former FBI agent Laurence Keenan describes how he had been sent to Mexico to investigate further, but was called back home after three days. He claims his investigations were hindered. The US government had known about the Cuban connection but kept it under wraps for fear of igniting a third world war.

Buchholz, however, had no difficulty locating Keenan’s six-page memorandum in the US national archive, dated December 3, 1963. There is nothing in the report to back up Keenan’s claims in the film (According to Keenan: “It’s all in my report”). Just the opposite – testifying before the Church Commission in 1976, which had also reviewed his memorandum, Keenan insisted that his investigations were in no way manipulated by political influence.

Another sensational document turned out to be a hoax following Buchholz’s investigation. According to the film, a small aircraft took off from Redbird Airport in Dallas destined for Mexico City several hours following Kennedy’s murder. On board was Fabian Escalante, a high-ranking official of the Cuban secret service G-2. From Mexico, he slipped away to Havanna on a commercial airliner. Huismann claims: “If Escalante [...] was at the scene of the crime in Dallas [...], this would point to an absolutely new and politically-charged link.”

Yes, if! The evidence Huismann presents is a “top-secret dossier, for Johnson’s eyes only. Never before published.“ The document was allegedly written for Lyndon B. Johnson by Kennedy’s advance man Martin Underwood. On official White House stationery.

The only problem is that it could never have been meant for the President’s eyes. Johnson had already been dead for over 20 years when Underwood wrote the “dossier”. In fact, it was something he had sketched as an idea for a book author in the 1990s, which Underwood openly admitted before the Assassination Records Review Board in 1997. He had acquired the White House stationery years ago. The book author was Gus Russo – who also happens to be Huismann’s co-writer.

Gus Russo's credibility has been challenged in the past by researcher Jim DiEugenio in his Probe article "Who is Gus Russo?" This all reinforces my view that Rendezvous with Death is not only wrong but fraudulent.