Why Wouldn't The CIA Release All The Remaining JFK Files This Thursday?

After Trump announced Saturday that he planned to release the remaining JFK files, let's first understand Dotard isn't doing this out of the generosity of his heart. Oh no. In fact, a congtessional law dating from 1992 mandated all files related to the JFK assassination be released in 25 years. That deadline arrives this Thursday, the 26th.

What do we mean by unreleased files?  This refers to about 3,100 previously unreleased files that hold tens of thousands of pages of new material. The National Archives has another 30,000 pages of documents that had been disclosed before but only partially and with redactions.

Other partial files have been released without explanation. One of these is the incriminating notes written by Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford which altered the position of the upper back wound to a base of neck wound in order to make the single bullet theory of Arlen Specter work, e.g.

The report of the change also appeared in the NY Times.

Researcher Jefferson Morley has expressed particular interest in the redacted files especially those to do with  William Harvey and David Atlee Phillips,   e.g.

Phillips ran all the cut outs (fake personae, duplicate Oswalds, etc.) to implicate Oswald as a commie nut in league with the KGB and Soviets – all the better to paint him as the one "lone nut"  assassin in Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963.  It was also Phillips who used forged cables from the Mexico City station he ran to frame Oswald. As noted by Peter Dale Scott (‘Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics’, 2013, p. 25) : "At least three show signs of CIA doctoring and the first, which does not, was nevertheless so misleading as to be possibly dishonest.” This was the October 8th cable that claimed Oswald had appeared at the Soviet Embassy on Oct. 1, and that  he had spoken with Valeriy Kostikov three days earlier. (Kostikov was top man in the KGB's "Department Thirteen" - responsible for assassinations.)

Harvey, for his part, led the agency's assassination operations, and likely had even expanded the CIA's  original basic handbook for foreign hits based on a 1954 operation ("PBSuccess") in Guatemala, e.g.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/

Harvey  feuded constantly with JFK's brother Robert, over the administration's crisis with Cuba. Morley in a 2008 book on Phillips wrote "there might be stuff on why we were interested in the Cuban consulate, how we surveilled the consulate."  Of course, many of these questions were answered more than 15 years earlier by John Newman in his book 'Oswald and the CIA' which also for the first time disclosed Oswald's CIA files, including: the OS-351-164 (office of security), the 201-289248 CI/SIG, and the 74-500.  All of these, in the words of Newman, the Warren Commission was "suspiciously quiet about".

In addition, when the agency did submit Oswald’s 201-file to the Warren Commission (under the header of Commission Document 692) they did not indicate it clearly or mark it as such. Instead, as Dale Scott (and also John Newman) observed the CIA buried it in a  Sept. 24 “memorandum”  relocated to a much later position in the file , making it appear as if it had been falsely drafted after the culpable Oct. 10 fake cables.

Despite all of this,  we are informed that Trump's CIA head - Pompeo- like previous CIA chiefs,  is cautioning against releasing all. The skinny is that certain files - like those concerning former CIA boss William Harvey- and Miami -based CIA spook George Joannides, may undermine national security by revealing secret methods.  Let's call bullshit on this one time, and emphasize the only thing that would be revealed is the CIA's (and NSA's) own hands in the assassination - with Lee Oswald the set up decoy - to hide the real perpetrators.

This isn't conspiracy "theory" but fact, and it boggles the mind so many who claim to be serious researchers haven't even been able to find the actual autopsy photos, which first appeared in David Lifton's book, Best Evidence (opposite page 382).

Then there was former Secret Service agent Clint Hill who  appeared for a couple of soundbites on CBS this morning as he sought  to further muddy the waters,  insisting baldly that "Oswald was the lone assassin". This clueless dolt, totally  immersed  in boundless ignorance,  also added:

"There will always be conspiracy theories no matter what. But everybody should remember that's what they are, not fact."

After hearing Hill babbling this bunkum, I was certain he'd never once examined the actual autopsy photos of the rear exit wound. Instead he remains captivated by Warrenite bunkum and the fake photo (see below) created at the behest of the Commission. .

Let's bear in mind then that Clint Hill  wouldn't be able to distinguish a JFK conspiracy fact from theory anyway. This is  because he's done no genuine investigation into the deed, or even examined the detailed files.(Including, I warrant, Oswald's CIA files - see the cited list earlier.)  He's basically a hack and stooge like Gerald Posner who appeared on the ABC News last night to try to argue there is nothing more there - only bland omissions of known info.  Posner's many oversights, lies, distortions and "fake facts" are revealed in an issue of The Electronic Assassination Newsletter. Several dedicated actual researchers  collated these assorted "Posnerisms"  mainly from his propaganda book, 'Case Closed' (1993).

http://assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

Posner's role, like Hill's, is clearly as a media tool  to try to uphold the Warrenite lone nut  fantasy. As for the assumption of a rear head shot,  that was obliterated via the actual autopsy photos showing the rear of JFK's skull blown out. This could only have come from a frontal shot, e.g.

Any actual rear head wound would have been obliterated by the frontal shot's cavitation path backward. In effect, anyone subscribing to such a rear head shot is more than likely misdirected  by the bogus mortician's plaster reconstruction which was used to sell the TSBD shooter location (see left image).

The actual autopsy image which neither Posner or Hill appear to know about is also confirmed by Bethesda Naval Hospital lab tech Paul O'Connor's sketch of JFK's head at the autopsy , e.g.


The massive rear cavitation end path shows just how much of the skull had to be reconstructed using mortician's plaster to give the illusion of an intact back of head. 

. He further indicated it displayed more damage than could possibly be done by a military jacketed bullet. The bullet was more likely the explosive or frangible type.  Parkland surgeon Charles Crenshaw also validated that the rear of the head had been blown out and readers interested can obtain his excellent book, 'JFK - Conspiracy of Silence' .  This link to a .pdf version of Dr. Crenshaw's book can be found below:

http://www.krusch.com/books/kennedy/Conspiracy_Of_Silence.pdf

Most interesting (page 10) is when Dr. Crenshaw was shown one of the Warren autopsy photos and asked by Gary Shaw (of the Sixth Floor Museum)  whether it matched what he observed when attending to JFK,  Dr. Crenshaw was incredulous. He immediately spotted the fake and ascertained  that the head had been "manipulated".  It was immediately evident to him that a conspiracy was at work, else why alter the massive frontal head wound to a rear one?

Dr. Crenshaw also noted the aberrant behavior of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill (pp. 80-81) running around Trauma Room 1 like a mad chicken with its head cut off, and gun out. Crenshaw also referenced Hill's later hospitalization for a nervous breakdown, and one certainly wonders if this retired agent isn't still affected.  I won't go so far as to say addled in the head, but hearing him babble so assuredly this morning about "conspiracy  theory" nonsense, one wonders.

What CBS should be commended for in its reporting this morning is the cautionary note that we may still all be played by Trump and his cronies again. First, we learned of this released CIA statement:

"The CIA continues to engage in the process to determine the appropriate next steps with respect to any previously  unreleased CIA information."

Then we learned, based on a White House release this a.m., read by CBS correspondent Chip Reed:

"The President wants to release the documents in the interest of transparency but the President also said that's unless agencies provide a compelling and clear national security or law enforcement  justification."

As Reed put it:

"That is a loophole or exception you could drive a truck through."

In other words we may actually see very few of the key files released. Which are most suspect that we'd be interested in? 

1) All those to do with the operations of William Harvey

As pointed out by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics Quarterly, Jan. 1994): “In 1961, when William Harvey headed Staff D, he was assigned the task of developing the CIA Assassinations Project, ZR/Rifle”

Harvey would have authorized the mutation of the original Staff D plan - to take out Castro to one with JFK the prime target.   We also know  no one informed the Warren Commission that the letter ‘D’ – on the cover sheet of Oswald’s 201 file – indicated CIA Staff D, a SIGINT or signals intelligence operation run in concert with the National Security  Agency or NSA.

2) The role of George Joannides

George Joannides - whose files the CIA is bent on most protecting

In mid-1963, one of the main responsibilities of Joannides was the handling of the DRE (Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil ) whose members were all at forefront of the fight to eliminate Fidel Castro. A once-secret memo with portion noting the use of the DRE originally came under control and oversight of Gen. Edward Lansdale and described how the DRE operatives were to be deployed in Miami and New Orleans. (Not long after, Oswald was filmed on Canal Street in New Orleans in an altercation with Bringuier.)

Here’s what we do know: According to declassified CIA records corroborated by interviews, Joannides served as chief of the CIA's anti-Castro psychological warfare operation in Miami in 1963. The operation was run out of the largest CIA station outside of Langley, called JM/WAVE. More than 300 CIA agents directed over 3,000 Cuban agents and subagents, out of a front corporation called 'Zenith Technical Enterprises, Inc.' near (the then)  Crandon Park.  (My family used to often visit Crandon Park, especially its popular zoo.)   More than 50 other dummy fronts and organizations were also used for the employment of the anti-Castro (exile) Cubans, such as Carlos Bringuier.

Bringuier himself was also likely a member of the DRE, given it was one of the biggest and most active CIA-backed groups in Miami. In mid-1963, one of the main responsibilities of Joannides was the handling of the DRE whose members were all at forefront of the fight to eliminate Fidel Castro, first via Operation Mongoose, later through the CIA’s own covert assassination program, ZR Rifle.  But their use in mid -1963 was to assist in painting Oswald as a fellow-traveler and communist sympathizer. In fact, the evidence from Oswald's CIA files suggests he was trying to infiltrate the group.

According to a CIA memo found at the JFK Library, Joannides was giving $25,000 a month (about $147,000 in today's dollars) to the DRE at the time when the group's New Orleans delegation decided to collect intelligence on and publish propaganda about Oswald.

Clearly, the only reason to withhold the Joannides files - like the ones on Harvey - would be the agencies' refusal to confirm what most of us already know.  In other words, keeping the loop of "ambiguity" open so the conspiracy deniers (like .John McAdams) can keep their little websites churning out denials much like the Reich wing climate denial sites deny the links of the recent monster storms to climate change.

The bottom line is that most of the salient information and key files have already been released and have been sitting under people's noses for two decades or more. The fact is additional files, with the possible exception of the Joannides   ones, will add very little to our insights.  This is something to keep in mind as more and more media mouthpieces start exaggerating the importance of remaining files  or the impact if Trump declines to release them based on agency demands.

As for Charlie Rose's brief burp at the end of the CBS segment: "We always come back to the same conclusion".

Well, of course, because the media especially refuses to parse the detailed files that unequivocally disclose conspiracy, such as the autopsy photos in Lifton's book, or the basic physics of the head shot.  But what can we expect in a nation where PR and propaganda reign. Even Michael Beschloss, a presumed eminent historian - appearing on 'Hardball' this evening,  believes Oswald showed up in Mexico City - an unforgiveable misstep for anyone with his name cachet.

Another example of media codswallop is this refuse from the WSJ today (p. A4):

“Among insights scholars hope to gain from documents is why assassin Lee Harvey Oswald traveled to Mexico City before the killing.”

Which begs the question of whether such “scholars” are blind, woefully ignorant or plain stupid. First, Oswald was not the assassin, given he was used under Harvey's Staff D as the patsy or decoy. All the evidence points to that. Second, Oswald – the real one – never went to Mexico City.

The image (right) taken by the CIA Mexico City station ('Oswald and the CIA', 1993, John Newman) was not of Oswald at all, e.g.

Thus, any scholar's claim that the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City is where "Oswald showed up weeks before Kennedy's death" is pure hogwash. Oswald never went to Mexico City, period, and this is one of the litmus tests to distinguish a serious JFK researcher from a pretender.  The photo at right above, taken by actual cameras mounted outside the Mexico City station (and appearing originally in John Newman's 'Oswald and the CIA') show incontrovertibly that the person who showed up was an impostor. A heavy set guy bearing no resemblance to Lee.

Scholars? Now we have to ask if real or a pseudo. scholar like Gerald Posner.  What we need is for the government to come clean, no excuses and release all the hitherto unseen files and also non-redacted versions of earlier files. 

A JFK Assassination Book All Serious Researchers Need to Read!

Richard Charnin’s new book: Reclaiming Science- The JFK Conspiracy, features an apt title because it entails reclaiming the content that has hitherto been obfuscated and distorted under the specious science (or what I call pseudo-science) of the Warren Report as well as its PR apologists like Gerald Posner ('Case Closed') and Vince Bugliosi ('Reclaiming History'). These charlatans have sought to reinforce all manner of pseudo-science to do with the assassination - that's been pumped out by a clueless and complicit media the past five decades. And believe me, Richard Charnin's book is the ideal antidote.


Granted, it likely won’t be on any NY Times best sellers’ lists but I found it to be one of the best new books on the JFK assassination to emerge in the past 25 years. Charnin, a former consultant and quantitative programmer for investment banks has written a mathematical masterpiece which uses Poisson analysis to show a significant number of witness deaths in the wake of the JFK assassination were indeed unnatural (Confirming an earlier London Times actuarial assessment).

This is important given how the matter of JFK witness deaths represents what many serious researchers regard as one component of the ongoing cover up.  It is also important because the issue is rife with disinformation and misinformation from know-nothings.

These are people who believe they're entitled to just recklessly babble about the assassination from a position of woeful ignorance, like Marilyn Elias. Recall that in a prior post, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-second-assassination-today-fifty.html

I'd noted how Elias had tried to refute witness deaths such as that of Dorothy Kilgallen- in her piece 'Conspiracy Act' , in The Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report (Winter, 2013, p. 15). Elias also, in some of the worst yellow journalism, tried to tar the  whole witness murders theme by castigating Richard Belzer for being a nasty, anti-government sort because he appeared on a radio program with Alex Jones to promote his new book,  'Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination' .

I have read Belzer's book, along with Charnin's, and believe it to be one of the most important for newcomers and also more experienced researchers (who've done  at least 10 yrs. work) to get a handle on the matter of the witness deaths, and why they are not coincidental.  Elias, for her part,  shows her incompetence by her reliance on hack Gerald Posner who has already been exposed as one of several disinformation agents, see e.g. how his slapdash investigations have been exposed here:

http://assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

Re: Kilgallen, as Charnin notes (p. 120):

"was the only reporter granted an exclusive interview with Ruby in jail. She openly attacked the cover-up in her New York Journal-American columns on 2/2/64 and 9/3/65."

Most notably (ibid.):

"She reported a meeting between Ruby, Tippit and a Texas oilman, and revealed that Oswald was in too many places at one time, had links to U.S. intelligence and his true story was known to just a few government agents."

This alone would have put Kilgallen on the architects' radar, for likely elimination, because of:  a) her prominence as a journalist, and b) exposing aspects of the plot the architects wanted kept under wraps. This especially applied to LBJ who had many links to Texas oilmen, (including Clint Murchison and H.L. Hunt) which he didn't want broadcast, not to mention undermining his Warren Commission fraud.  Two key aspects were the Oswald double - which I examined before and cited James Douglass' sterling work exposing it in his 'JFK and the Unspeakable', including the actual intelligence background of Oswald. The latter destroys the lone nut madman myth that LBJ and Hoover wanted to plant in their illegitimate 'child' - the Warren Commission Report.

Thus, one sees there would have been ample reason to eliminate Kilgallen, as much or more as the reasons to eliminate David Ferrie (when the Garrison investigation started) and William Bruce Pitzer, the lab specialist at Bethesda who vowed to expose the actual autopsy photos and chicanery.

But this is where Charnin's probability analyses (e.g. in Chapters 3, 4) really comes to the fore - in separating the suspicious witness deaths from the natural ones. And note, imho this could only have been done using a Poisson -type analysis.  Much of this hearkens back to statistics shown at the end of the excellent movie, Executive Action (1973) which I strongly recommend to any interested person. Those stats cited an actuary's finding reported in the London Sunday Times which calculated the odds of 18 material witness deaths within three years of the assassination at 100, 000 trillion to 1. In other words, 100,000 trillion to 1 against being coincidence!

As Charnin points out (p. 25):

"The HSCA statistician dismissed the odds as being invalid, claiming the universe of witnesses was unknowable."

But, of course, this is nonsense since as Charnin later notes 1400 material witnesses are listed in 'Who's Who in the JFK Assassination'.

Charnin also correctly observes (ibid.)

"The (London) actuary's probability was actually very conservative. At least 42 JFK-related witnesses died unnaturally in the three years following the assassination.  Using the 0.000220 weighted JFK -witness mortality rate the probability is E-53 (1/ Trillion ^4). "

For those more accustomed to standard (scientific) notation this would be:  10 ^-53    or, alternatively, 1 in  10⁵³   odds.

Linked to the issue of witness deaths is how they could have been accomplished with so many seeming objective observers being none the wiser. This Charnin takes up in Chapter 6 on 'Motives and Techniques' where we learn, for example, of the poison dart gun umbrella developed by the CIA at Fort Detrick, Maryland - used in the JFK throat shot. (There was a small entrance wound in JFK's neck but no bullet was ever recovered - leading researchers to believe a small dart left the partial wound which later dropped out, or an ice pellet)

We also learn of "a special type of poison that induces a heart attack and leaves no trace unless an autopsy is conducted." This was surely the type used to eliminate David Ferrie, as well as others (Clay Shaw, Earlene Roberts).

Charnin's other chapters are equally compelling including to do with the Warren Commission itself (p. 17),  Dealey Plaza (p. 55),  Acoustics (69), the Zapruder Film ( 79) , Wounds (83), the Patsy (87), Disinformation (105) and his JFK Calc Spreadsheet (p. 135). The latter has now been enhanced to include Dealey Plaza witnesses' reference to the origin of the shots.

There are also 38 pages comprising nine appendices- ending with a quiz on the assassination. (Something every would - be bloviator or opinion provider needs to take - to prove he is worthy of making comments!)

No one should let the math get in the way of owning this useful and essential book, a critical addition to the assassination literature.

See also:

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/jfk-witness-deaths-graphical-proof-of-a-conspiracy/

Frequently Asked Questions on the JFK Assassination (Pt. 10): The Media Complicity in Coverup, Gerald Posner & Vince Bugliosi

1. How has the media affected our perception of the assassination?

In his book,  America Besieged (p. 140)  Michael Parenti devotes an entire chapter to Media Manipulation.  Among the many methods elaborated, by which the corporate mainstream media projects the dominant ideology, are (ibid.):


- Suppression by omission

- Attack and destroy the target

- Labeling

- Face-value transmission

- Framing

In the first, the media omit key or relevant facts from discussion, or fail to connect the existing facts to their reasoning. For example, this morning the author of the book JFK- End of Days, was asked if there could have been anyone involved in the assassination besides Lee Oswald. He said emphatically 'No!' but then described Jackie moving over the rear of the limo trunk to try to snatch a fragment of her husband's skull.  The latter, of course, totally shows the laws of physics at work in the case of linear momentum transfer - such that a bullet's momentum, driving a piece of skull backwards, means the shot had to have come from the front.  But the author never made any connection or reference to it, or the physical meaning.

Another example of media manipulation- embodying the remaining tactics -  appeared on NBC’s Today during the week of Aug. 8,  2002. Entitled 'Truth or Conspiracy', the manipulation began from the outset by framing the title as a false dichotomy. By posing it as truth OR conspiracy, the implicit message was that conspiracy was untruth, or lie: The logical effect of such a subtext was to drive the viewer away from conspiracy by regarding it as the polar opposite of truth. If one had truth, then conspiracy was mutually exclusive with it, or so NBC would have had us believe, totally reinforcing Michael Parenti’s point that the mainstream corporate media depicts it as imaginary despite the fact people have been prosecuted for it!

In the NBC segments, John McAdams was the sole person appearing along with some of his (Marquette University) students who mainly played the role of willing dupes.  In the segments,  McAdams masterfully labeled those he disagreed with ('buffs')  while also framing conspiracies as essential nonsense or lack of knowledge.  It was a superb exhibition of media complicity at work.
 

The upshot is that our national media is devoted only to fake objectivity through a distorted lens. Nowhere is this more evident than in political elections which the media consistently turn into a “horse race” or they trivialize them in other ways. Our government panders mainly to corporations, who give money for campaigns, and ignores average citizens. Lacking knowledge of the forces that killed JFK, these trends can only be reinforced as the corporate information tentacles metastasize.

2. How can these media tendencies be explained?

One major clue we have is provided by Katherine S. Olmstead in her book, 'Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI', 1996, Univ. of North Carolina Press. Olmstead pointedly notes (page 21):

"According to the (1978) Church committee's final report, approximately fifty U.S. Journalists had covert relationships with the CIA, about half of which involved money. Watergate investigative reporter Carl Bernstein charged that the total number of U.S. journalists who worked for the CIA was actually much higher. In a controversial article in 'Rolling Stone'.

Bernstein claimed that more than 400 American journalists secretly carried out assignments for the CIA from the early 1950's to the mid-1970's. The 'New York Times' alone, Bernstein insisted, provided cover for ten CIA officers from 1950 to 1966"

Further (ibid.):

"Even when a newspaper or network did not have a formal relationship with the CIA, the agency could still have close ties and mutual interests with its reporters and editors- Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee's brother-in-law was covert operations chief Cord Meyer; Post Publisher Phil Graham was a close friend of another covert operations agent,  Frank Wisner."

And there we have it: The Post was not only in bed with operatives of the CIA, they (in all probability) followed the Agency's party line directive for dealing with critics of the Warren Report - as laid out in CIA document 1035-360. Why else over react so violently over a film (JFK) even recruiting nabobs like George Will  to write piffle when their forte isn't history at all!

Recall also that Don de Lillo's superb novel 'LIBRA' - also a fictitious portrayal of the Kennedy assassination- was skewered by critic Paul Gray in a review ('Reimagining Death in Dallas') published in TIME (Aug. 1, 1988).   The sad truth is that centers of power and elite overclass interests immensely fear a fully conscious public as opposed to a deluded, false conscious one.

 3. What is Operation Mockingbird and could the media's biased posture be associated with it?

Absolutely!  This was a CIA-instigated operation during the 1960s-70s  to infiltrate the media with CIA contacts to divert or manipulate discussion, information on sensitive topics (such as the Kennedy assassination). In fact the book by Olmstead (previous section) likely summarizes key aspects of it.  In this way, seemingly coordinated fronts would be generated in the media to make it seem they all agree on critical discussion points. I.e. Was there a conspiracy? Of course not! Oswald did it! Case Closed! We have the forensic evidence, etc.

To see a Youtube video on 'Mockingbird', with open admissions,  go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCfTIapds0

Thanks to the Church Committee, Mockingbird was exposed though when people see the same propaganda in the current media mutation they seldom make the connection to what went before.(They should recall how the shameless media all acted as cheerleaders  for the Bushite  Iraq invasion and war back in 2003!)

Author Michael Parenti ( America Besieged,  Dirty Truths ) has perhaps done the most to expose the insidious nature of conspiracy phobia that resides in elite American culture, mainly in the mainstream media, and its halls of power.  Two particular chapters, ‘Is Conspiracy Only a Theory?’ in the first book, and ‘Conspiracy Phobia on the Left’ in the second, hold the clue to why even some liberals like Tom Hanks, Rachel Maddow, Marilyn Elias et al run from the c-word. Parenti makes no bones about the fact that “most people suffer from conspiracy phobia” and “they treat anyone who investigates conspiracy as a conspiracy buff or oddball." Of course, "most people" to which he refers are mainly members of the media and political class - always bound by conformity to "official" narratives- lest they be tagged as "non-objective" or "loony".

Parenti notes if the claimed conspiracy hasn’t been validated to their satisfaction, it’s merely a theory (which they erroneously equate with speculation), but if it was validated, as in Watergate, then ‘Voila!’ it’s no longer theory but an actuality!  But this is essential nonsense. As Parenti observes, it means that “conspiracy can never be proven and if proven it can’t be conspiracy”.

Parenti concludes all conspiracies are thereby relegated to “the realm of the imaginary”. Real conspiracies (proven so), meanwhile, shuck off the c-word label and become another, different breed of historical reality.

We are reminded here of the foremost rule of propaganda and brainwashing as enunciated by the master of mind- mashing, Edward Bernays:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country.”

This prescription clearly underlies the persistent media efforts to drive the American public to accept one version of the Kennedy assassination and no other.

4. What About Gerald Posner? Didn't his 'Case Closed' answer all questions?

 Let me put it this way: If it had, why would Vince Bugliosi have found it necessary to write a 2,500-plus page cinderblock of  book to 'Reclaim History'? Unfortunately for Posner, people did read his book, not to satisfy themselves that he’d closed the case, but to assess just how closely Posner adhered to the known facts. One of the earliest scrutinizing efforts was The Posner Report- A Study in Propaganda: One Hundred Errors in Gerald Posner’s Case Closed – Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by David Starks. Starks draws on the published reports and documents of true experts like Peter Dale Scott, Dr. Gary Aguilar and Martin Shackelford. The Report skewers Posner’s claims and effectively discloses a hack who made “hundreds of errors” in his pell-mell rush to judgment.

5. So how much did Posner get wrong?
 

A lot!  The Electronic Assassination Newsletter which collates the research from most JFK Assassination experts documents twelve of the most serious “Posnerisms” here:

http://assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

Those who take the time to examine, study the examples in the link will become aware of an unnerving lack of attention to detail and a penchant for what appears to be deliberate misrepresentation. Indeed, Posner’s entire case appears to be erected on a tissue of lies, misrepresentations, gross distortions and shoddy methodology, the mass of which can’t even redeem it as coincidental. Despite that, he remains the official “hit man” to use against conspiracy “buffs” by the corporate media to knock down anything that remotely smacks of conspiracy.

Harrison Livingstone, a long time researcher, described Posner’s book as: "a fatally flawed, intellectually dishonest effort”.

 

 

Meanwhile, Prof. David R. Wrone, whose review of Case Closed appeared in The Journal of Southern History, notes:

Posner often presents the opposite of what the evidence says. In the presentation of a corrupt picture of Oswald’s background- for example – he states that, under the name of Osborne, Oswald picked up leaflets he distributed from the Jones Printing Company and that a ‘receptionist’ identified him. She in fact said that Oswald did not pick up the leaflets as the source that Posner cites indicates. “

He adds:   No credible evidence connects Oswald to the murder. All the data that Posner presented to do so is either shorn of context, corrupted, the opposite of what the sources actually say, or non-sourced.

And further:

Posner crowns his theory with the certainty of science by using one side of the computer-enhanced studies by Failure Analysis Associates of Menlo Park that his text implies he commissioned. The firm, however, lambastes his use as a distortion of the technology that it developed for the American Bar Association’s mock trial of Oswald where both sides used it.”

Not surprisingly, many ordinary researchers as well as professionals (e.g. Harold Weisberg) contend Posner is likely a disinformation hack, possibly for the CIA, and perhaps even part of its notorious “Operation Mockingbird” propaganda machine which infected the U.S. Media from the 1970s. Most importantly, Posner’s book neatly aligns itself with CIA Document 1035-960 (See Appendix) with its mandate to counter criticism of the Warren Report using “propaganda assets”.

In the meantime one is left to ponder how a person such as Posner could have gained so much influence and gravitas. The best answer I can arrive at is that offered by Curtis White, author of The Middle Mind. Posner, then, has proven skillful and adept at doing exactly what the corporate media PR mavens and their CIA associates demand: manage the “Middle Mind” and prevent it from veering too far off the established tracks, as defined by the Warren Commission’s parameters.

6. So is Posner now 'damaged goods' - never to appear again?

 

Hardly! He will be appearing with Vince Bugliosi - I understand - on some farce called "The Definitive Guide to the Kennedy Assassination"  on the History Channel. Posner, incredibly, is also afforded gravitas by being quoted (p.15) in a recent (Winter, 2013) issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, in an article ('Conspiracy Act') by a Marilyn Elias. She not only provides cover to the lying Posner but criticizes the well-validated surgical alteration of Kennedy's wounds (see my FAQ Pt. 5) and the similarly exposed role of Ruby. In this way even the so-called progressive media becomes part of the 'unspeakable' described by author James Douglass. In so doing, she plays directly into the hands of the propagandists as a willing dupe. All I can say here, is that anyone who watches the History HD farce and seriously believes it's the "definitive guide" will likely need to sign up for a future episode of The Walking Dead. As one of the zombies!Ditto for anyone who takes the SPLC bunkum seriously.

 

 

7. What of Vince Bugliosi? What he did get wrong? What is he advocating?

 

 

Let me take the last question first: Bugliosi is none other than a shill for the Warren Whitewash Commission which I exposed in my FAQ - parts 4a and 4b. Readers can consult these and see what they think. If they agree the Warren Commission and its Report are legit - after reading through them carefully - there's nothing more I can say.

 

 

As for the amount of items Bugliosi got wrong, they are too voluminous to recount here in one FAQ segment, and too much to expect the casual blog reader to confront. However, the interested reader who wants to delve into the errors can consult any of these links:

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/green/BesmirchingHistory.html


http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2007/05/reclaiming-history-from-vince-bugliosi.html

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Is_Vincent_Bugliosi_Right_that_Neutron_Activation_Analysis_Proves_Oswalds_Guilt

My main complaint is that Bugliosi's book amounts to one long ad hominem. It veers into it even when discussing evidence. When I took my first college Logic course, one of the things we were instructed to look out for was “ad hominem” in parsing arguments.  That is, attacking the sources as opposed to the arguments. Bugliosi commits this in spades, for example,  writing :

(p. 1258) " ... simple common sense, that rarest of attributes among conspiracy theorists ... " , 

 p. 1275: "But conspiracy theorists are not rational and sensible when it comes to the Kennedy assassination." 

 (p. 1277) " ... silliness is what all of the conspiracy allegations are about ... "

Sadly, Bugliosi’s penchant for ad hominem doesn’t end with the critical conspiracy community – authors but extends to key witnesses and others (e.g. Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden) trying to fight for the truth. For example, Bugliosi refers to the courageous African-American woman Aquilla Clemmons (who pointedly noted that a heavyset man shot Officer J.D. Tippitt, not Oswald) as a “kook”. He dismisses the first African-American Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden as a "liar", though it beggars the imagination to think Bolden would actually put himself in the way of a long prison sentence merely to tell tall tales.

But is Bugliosi rational? Anyone who commits the level of errors, conflations, ad hominem we behold in his work must question such an assumption.  But what really gets the discriminating reader annoyed are the multifold LIES. In his chapter on Cyril Wecht, ‘A Conversation with Dr. Cyril Wecht’, Bugliosi concluded by insisting that Wecht:

 “demonstrated there is no credible evidence whatsoever that any shots were fired from the president’s right side or right front” adding that “the conspiracy theorists’ main forensic expert cannot even hypothesize a shooting from the right side or right front that is intellectually feasible.”

But in fact, Wecht can and DID! (In the video documentary 'The Single Bullet Theory')  Moreover he did it in meticulous detail including using anatomical sketches, and diagrams sowing the putative single bullet’s path and why it couldn’t work. In addition,

Wecht hasn’t budged from this position since that documentary was completed ca. 1993! Indeed, when Wecht was confronted with Bugliosi’s words (‘Last Word’, 2011, by Mark Lane, p. 153) he responded that Bugliosi’s words were “inexplicable” since Wecht had:

 “stated to Bugliosi that all the relevant evidence – including the medical evidence, the x-rays of the president that he had examined and the statements of the physicians, had long ago convinced him that a shot had been fired from the grassy knoll area.”

 

 

So why didn’t Bugliosi faithfully report Wecht’s words instead of lying about them and yes, distorting them? Because to do so would not have served his agenda of holding up the Warren Commission Report as the “Holy Grail” of the assassination and the last word! However, this misstep, like the hundreds of Gerald Posner in his ‘Case Closed’ – merely shows both to be in the service of disinformationists, most likely the CIA who in their own document 1035- 960 (marked ‘Psych’ for psychological warfare operations) clearly state under Sec. 3(b) ‘Propaganda assets’:

But Bugliosi's lies even veer into the most generic arenas. Bugliosi (p. 1003) insists that one of the first critical authors of the Warren Commission , Mark Lane, never mentioned in his book Rush to Judgment, that Oswald had been arrested. Bugliosi’s exact words are: “He doesn’t even mention Oswald’s arrest”.

Bugliosi must not think many readers have access to his book (which I finally located at a Colorado Springs library last year) or Lane’s, but he’s wrong. When I checked my copy of Lane’s book I found (p. 81) not only the details of the place of arrest but the time and the words “Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theater at approximately 1.50 p.m. that day” but other confirmations.


The question that emerges is: If Bugliosi can lie with impunity about even a minor pro forma (generally accepted) event as concerns the critical pro-conspiracy community, how many larger events would he be prepared to misrepresent in the interest of his propaganda?

------------------
APPENDIX: CIA Document 1035-960

CIA Document #1035-960
RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report:

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results.

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination.

Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:

a. To discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (I) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)

4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:

a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider. The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the attack on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics. (A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P. Taylor, D.C. Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative, without acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the world that the Nazis were to blame.)

b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.

c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.

d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of the Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of probabilities into certainties.

e. Oswald would not have been any sensible person's choice for a co-conspirator. He was a "loner," mixed up, of questionable reliability and an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service. 

f. As to charges that the Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms. 

g. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.