Hi all,

I have a range called Criteria in Excel (2000, SP3 under W2K) that has
the formula "=OFFSET(T_MEAN!R426C9,0,0,a,b)", where a and b are
references to single cells in the same worksheet.

I am trying to dynamically change the criteria range for advanced
filters, and am using the above range to do so. However, once I invoke
the advanced filter the definition of the named range changes to a
static reference of the sort =MySheet!$I$426:$I$427.
Any ideas on why this happens?

TIA

Ramu K.

for covering things up.

It would be easy to dismiss The Search for JFK as a slanted book,
and even easier to argue that the authors had an agenda. Clay
Blair was educated at Tulane and Columbia and served in the Navy
from 1943-1946. He was a military affairs writer and Pentagon
correspondent for Time-Life from 1949 to 1957. He then became an
editor for the Saturday Evening Post and worked his way up to the
corporate level of that magazine's parent company, Curtis
Publications. Almost all of his previous books dealt with some
kind of military figure or national security issue e.g. The
Atomic Submarine and Admiral Rickover, The Hydrogen Bomb,
Nautilus 90 North, Silent Victory: the U.S. Submarine War Against
Japan. In his book on Rickover, he got close cooperation from the
Atomic Energy Commission and the book was screened by the Navy
Department. In 1969 he wrote a book on the Martin Luther King
murder called The Strange Case of James Earl Ray. Above the
title, the book's cover asks the question "Conspiracy? Yes or
No!" Below this, this the book's subtitle gives the answer,
describing Ray as "The Man who Murdered Martin Luther King." To
be sure there is no ambiguity, on page 146 Blair has Ray shooting
King just as the FBI says he did, no surprise since Blair
acknowledges help from the Bureau and various other law
enforcement agencies in his acknowledgements.

The Ray book is basically an exercise in guilt through character
assassination. This practice has been perfected in the Kennedy
assassination field through Oswald biographers like Edward
Epstein and

and, at the same time, make him into a
status-seeking iconoclast whose beliefs and sympathies are contra
to those of America. The problem with this is dual. First, it is
the typical "like father, like son" blanket which reeks of guilt,
not just by association, but by birth. Second, the blatant ploy
does not stand scrutiny because what makes John and Robert
Kennedy so fascinating is how different their politics and
economics were from Joe Kennedy's and how fast the difference was
exhibited. To use just two examples from JFK's first term in the
House, Kennedy rejected his father's isolationist Republican type
of foreign policy and opted for a more internationalist approach
when he voted for the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan. Second,
Kennedy voted to sustain Truman's veto of Taft-Hartley which
would weaken unions and strengthen American big
businessmen-people like his father. From there on in, the splits
got wider and wider. It is this father-son dichotomy that none of
these books cares to acknowledge let alone explore-which reveals
their intent. (An exception is the Blairs' book, which does
acknowledge the split on pp. 608-623.)

In their approach to JFK, Collier and Horowitz take up where the
Blairs left off. In fact, they play up the playboy angle even
more strongly than the Blairs. When Kennedy gets to Washington in
1947, this note is immediately struck with "women's underthings
stuffed into the crevices of the sofa" (p. 189) and a "half-eaten
hamburger hidden behind books on the mantel" (Ibid). The problem
here is there is no source given for the first observation and
the hamburger is sourced to none other than CIA-Washington Post
crony Joe Alsop, the man who, as Don Gibson pointed out, talked
LBJ into forming the Warren Commission (Probe Vol. 3 #4 pp. 28-
30).

This is typical of the book's low scholarly standard. Both
authors have advanced degrees from Cal Berkeley. Both had done
some so

Kennedy had lived. That
JFK was working for accommodation with Castro at the time of his
death. That the country has not really been the same since.
The preemptive strike was successful in slowing up the film's
momentum out of the starting block. But the movie did increase
the number of people who believe the case was a conspiracy into
the ninety-percent range. The following year, in anticipation of
the 30th anniversary of the murder, Gerald Posner got the jump on
the critics with his specious book on the case. The media hailed
him as a truth-teller. The critics were shut out. No nonfiction
book in recent memory ever received such a huge publicity
campaign-and deserved it less.

Looming in the Background

After Jim Marrs debated Posner on the Kevin McCarthy show in
Dallas, he chatted with him. Marrs asked him how he came to do
the book. Posner replied that an editor at Random House, one Bob
Loomis, got in contact with him and promised him cooperation from
the CIA with the book. This explains how Posner got access to KGB
turncoat Yuri Nosenko, who was put on a CIA retainer in the late
seventies. At the time of Posner-mania, Alan Houston wrote Mr.

Loomis, who also edited the Posner book. In a reply dated
10/27/93, Loomis revealed much about himself:
I have no doubt that you really believe what you are saying, but
I must tell you that your letter is one of the best indications
I've seen yet as to why the American public has been misled by
ridiculous conspiracy theories.

You have proved nothing insofar as I can see, except for the fact
that you simply can't see the truth of the situation. My feeling
is that it is you and other

of the case would jeopardize it.
Which was probably true. Under those circumstances, the Kennedys
can't even protect themselves.

This is understandable in human terms. But the compromise allows
the likes of Reeves, de Toledano, and Hersh to take the field
with confidence. The Kennedys are silent; they won't sue; it must
be true. As a corollary, this shows that the old adage about
history being written by the victors stands. In this upside down
milieu, all the Kennedys' sworn enemies can talk to any cheapjack
writer with a hefty advance and recycle another thrashing.
Mobsters and those in their employ, CIA officers and their
assets, rabid right-wingers et. al. Escorted by these writers,
they now do their dances over the graves of the two men they
hated most in life and can now revile in death. There is
something Orwellian about this of course.

The converse of this thesis is also true. The voices the Kennedys
symbolized are now squelched. Collier and Horowitz are intent on
never letting the ghost of the sixties reappear. The poor, the
weak, minorities, and the left's intelligentsia must not be
unsheathed again. (As Todd Gitlin notes in his book The Sixties,
on occasion, the Kennedy administration actually had SDS members
in the White House to discuss foreign policy issues.) The image
o

hut which had no amenities except a phone. Before he left,
he thanked the native Mexicans who lived there and took a look
around the dilapidated, almost bare interior. The only
decorations he saw were a plaster figurine of Che Guevara, and
near it, a photo of John Kennedy.

It's that international Jungian consciousness, however bottled
up, ambiguous, uncertain, that must be dislodged. In a sense,
this near-maniacal effort, and all the money and effort involved
in it, is a compliment that proves the opposite of the position
being advanced. This kind of defamation effort is reserved only
for the most dangerous foes of the status quo, e.g. a Huey Long
or a Thomas Jefferson. In a weird sort of way, it almost makes
one feel for the other side. It must be tough to be a security
guard of the mind, trying to control any ghosts rising from the
ashes. Which, of course, is why Hersh has to hide his real
feelings about his subject. That's the kind of threat the
Kennedys posed to the elite: JFK was never in the CFR (Imperial
Brain Trust p. 247); Bobby Kennedy hated the Rockefellers (Thy
Will be Done pp. 538-542). For those sins, and encouraging others
to follow them, they must suffer the fate of the Undead. And
Marilyn Monroe must be thrown into that half-world with them. At
the hands of Bob Loomis' pal, that "liberal" crusader Sy Hersh.

As Anson says, he must just want the money.


Current events, most notably a past issue of Vanity Fair, and the
upcoming release of Sy Hersh's new book, extend