“I am a freelance writer, journalist and historian whose major interests are music and history, with a special emphasis on the assassination of President Kennedy.”
Bill Kelly
Bill Kelly was a hero of the research movement. He grew up in Camden, New Jersey where his Dad was kept busy as a homicide detective.
Bill educated me from his father’s library as to how to investigate a homicide. Suffice it to say that JFK’s murder has never been properly investigated.
Bill met John Judge at the University of Dayton, which they both attended. The rest is history as they say. Bill and John started the Committee for an Open Archive which was their vehicle for years of productive research and writing. One day at the National Archives they were looking through a file on General Curtis LeMay and came across a news report that General LeMay died in a plane crash on November 22, 1963. This appeared to be part of a cover story for the assassination.
Bill and John were looking for another document and did not make a copy of the LeMay report, but the memory of it was in their minds and they passed the information on to us.
In 1993 researchers organized the Midwest Conference on Assassinations in Chicago. Bill and John were active participants. Among the oddities of the event was that Oliver Stone was filming a movie next door and was persuaded to drop into the conference and wave. Another was that Roger Feinman bumped into Dan Rather in the hallway of the Drake Hotel. Rather said he was on other business in Chicago. They
talked briefly of CBS’s firing of Roger when he would not drop the JFK investigation. Roger was very knowledgeable of internal matters at CBS.
John and Bill saw the need for a new national organization and John issued a call at the conference for such an organization. After a couple of false starts, COPA emerged with John as Executive Secretary and Dr. Wecht as Chairman.. I represented AARC on the COPA board. During the ARRB lifespan, COPA did great work getting the story out. Bill and John were key movers. It is likely that the truth of the assassination is in Bill’s writings.
John’s health ultimately failed, and Bill spoke eloquently at the funeral. I will never forget one thing he said about his friend John:
“The doctors said John died of an enlarged heart. Everyone who knew John knew he had a big heart.”
Now they are both gone, but not forgotten. Their work will live on in the annals of assassination research.
Dan Alcorn
AARC President
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“He never got the credit he deserved.”
— Malcolm Blunt
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Bill is remembered as a deeply knowledgeable, passionate, and inexhaustible investigator and essayist. His JFK assassination research is collected and made available to all through his blogspots:
Education:
McGraw School, Camden NJ
St. Joseph’s School, Federal Street, Camden, NJ. Grades 1 -8
Camden Catholic High School, Cherry Hill, N.J. 1965-1969
University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 1969-1973
B.S. Secondary Education, History, English, Teacher Certification Grades 7 – 12
Antioch Center for Social Research – 1974-75 Graduate Studies (incomplete)
Yellow Springs, Ohio/ Baltimore, Md. Campus.
Teaching Experience:
Minority Students Open Admissions tutor program, University of Dayton
Patterson Co-Operative High School, Dayton, Ohio, History.
Ocean City High School, Substitute teacher, part-time. History, English.
Administrative Experience:
Elected by the students of the UD School of Education to the Academic Senate, the academic policy making body of the University. Helped establish pass-fail courses, inter-disciplinary studies, and other experimental programs.
Travel :
Europe – 1970 summer. France, Monaco, Germany, Ireland, England. Met A. S. Neil at Summerhill School Australia – 1987-88 – Covered the America’s Cup Yacht Races as a journalist. Europe – 1991 – summer. Covered the fall of the Berlin Wall as a journalist.
Journalism Experience: Ocean City Broadsider Magazine Atlantic City Sun Newspaper SandPaper Newsmagazine of the Jersey Shore Ocean City Gazette Golfer’s Tee Times – Editor-Asst. Publisher Boardwalk Journal Magazine – Atlantic City Freelance articles have appeared in Atlantic City Magazine, Press of Atlantic City, Phila. Daily News, New Jersey Monthly, Irish America Mag, Boardwalk Journal, and others.
Regional History Books Published:
300 Years at the Point – A History of Somers Point, NJ – 1995
Birth of the Birdie – A History of Golf – 1998
