Expert Spotlight: Edgar F. Tatro

Today we are very proud to present another member of our outstanding 2013 panel.  Edgar F. Tatro, one of today's preeminent experts on the Kennedy Assassination, has pursued the truth as relentlessly as anyone over the past 50 years. Tatro holds a B.A. Degree in English from Boston University, a Master’s Degree in Urban Education from Boston State College and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Educational Administration from Boston State College.

He taught high school English for 38 years, specializing in science-fiction, mystery and horror, satire and comedy, creative writing, media and propaganda, and the origin, history and poetry of rock music. He also taught college and adult education courses for 30 years, specializing in the JFK assassination, subliminal messages in advertizing, the influence of rock music on drug abuse, backward messages in music, and plagiarism in music.

Mr. Tatro is the author of more than 30 mystery and horror short stories, literary essays and poems published in many magazines across the country. He also is the author of many research articles pertaining to the JFK assassination conspiracy, published in Jerry Rose’s  The Third Decade, Penn Jones’ , and Ireland’s The JFK Assassination Forum.

His work has been acknowledged or footnoted in many JFK assassination books, including Reasonable Doubt by Henry Hurt, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summers, Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio, (Probe Magazine) by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster by John H. Davis, Killing Kennedy by Harrison Livingstone, JFK; The Book of the Film by Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, Doug Weldon’s essay in Murder in Dealey Plaza and JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglass. Mr. Tatro is the original editor of Texas in the Morning, the memoirs of LBJ’s mistress, Madeleine Duncan Brown, and editor of the Bugliosi chapter in Biting the Elephant by Dr. Rodger Remington. He contributed research to Senator Sam Ervin’s Watergate investigative committee, the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the National Academy of Sciences (JFK acoustical analysis project). He attended Clay Shaw’s trial for one week in New Orleans, in February 1969, and was given ac- cess to the court exhibits by Judge Edward Haggerty. Mr. Tatro served as a minor consultant to Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK.” He testified before the Assassination Records Review Board in March 1995, in Boston, Mass. He was responsible, via the ARRB, for the release of the unidentified print found on a box in the alleged sniper’s nest in the Texas School Book De- pository, and, via the LBJ Library, for the release of the rough drafts of the rough draft of NSAM #273, which he shared with L. Fletcher Prouty, who shared them with Oliver Stone for "JFK."

Mr. Tatro was a consultant to Nigel Turner’s “The Truth Shall Set You Free,” and “The Smoking Guns,” parts six and seven of The Men Who Killed Kennedy series. He was a primary recruiter and participant in Turner’s “The Guilty Men,” part nine of the same series. 

Be sure to check our full, downloadable conference brochure for a complete list of speakers, schedules, and accommodations. 

Expert Spotlight: Douglas P. Horne

We are extremely happy to present Douglas P. Horne as one of our speakers at this year's conference. Horne served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) for the final three years of its four-year lifespan, from August 1995 to September 1998. Initially hired as a Senior Analyst on the ARRB’s Military Records Team, he was promoted halfway through his three-year tour to the position of “Chief Analyst for Military Records” (Team Leader of the Military Records Team, and a member of the Senior Staff).  Mr. Horne was instrumental in helping to locate and to declassify key Kennedy administration records on Cuba and Vietnam policy from 1961 to 1964. However, his most important work on the ARRB staff was the assistance he provided to the General Counsel in conducting all 10 sworn depositions of key personnel who conducted, or witnessed, President Kennedy’s military autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital on November 22, 1963. Those 10 deposition transcripts, as well as numerous summary reports of additional, unsworn medical witness  interviews, reside today in the National Archives as part of the JFK Records Collection.

In 2009, Douglas Horne published his magnum opus, the five-volume encyclopedic work Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK — a frank and extremely detailed discussion of the overwhelming evidence of the U.S. government’s cover-up, in 1963 and 1964, of the medical evidence surrounding JFK’s assassination — incorporating for the first time, a comprehensive overview of the post-ARRB state of the JFK medical evidence (including evidence gathered by the Warren Commission, HSCA, ARRB, and members of the independent JFK research community).

Mr. Horne graduated Cum Laude from The Ohio State University in 1974 with a B.A. in History. After serving as a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy for almost 10 years, and as a Navy civil servant for 10 additional years, he joined the ARRB staff. Following his service to the Review Board, Mr. Horne briefly joined the staff of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for more than two years; and since 2002, has been an employee of the U.S. State Department. He currently has logged more than 37 years of U.S. government service.

Articles and blog posts from Mr. Horne:

"JFK's War Against the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated"

"The AF1 Tapes and Subsequent Events at Andrews AFB on Novemeber 22, 1963"

The Alteration of the Zapruder Film