John McAdams Tries To Rip My Review of Richard Charnin's JFK Book

McAdams about 18 years ago doing a fist bump after nearly destroying a usenet newsgroup on the JFK assassination with which he didn't agree. He's since been fired by Marquette Univ.

It appears known, long time JFK assassination conspiracy disinformationist, .John McAdams (he likes to write his name with a period in front - maybe as reminder to pause and remember which persona he will be for a day) didn't approve of my review of Richard Charnin's excellent book, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-jfk-assassination-book-all-serious.html

On one shilling -for- the- Warren Commission forum, McAdams claims to have tried to dig up material on me and learned:  "No academic appointment, he never had any job with any reputable scientific organizations - and has been an atheist for 25 years and written dozens of  articles in major newspapers and had  one-on-one debates with priests, ministers."

But if this is an indicator of his googling or research skills it shows he's beyond pathetic.  Even the most menial googler would have learned (from the All Experts site) that I've been an atheist 36 years (not that this has any relation to the JFK assassination)  and also written four atheist books, none of which McAdams mentions. But why should he have since the whole point was to demean my accomplishments and by extrapolation the book review.  Had he done more intense research as opposed to acting the part of a "hit man", however,  he might have learned I am an Emeritus member of the American Astronomical Society and a member of its Solar Physics and Dynamical Astronomy divisions. He'd  also have encountered my appointment at the Geophysical Institute - Space Physics Dept, over 1985-86 and also my appointment as a peer reviewer for the NSF in the 80s  - for space and solar physics papers.  Then my additional appointment to help in completing the most massive monograph on solar -terrestrial physics  yet published: The Solar -Terrestrial Predictions Proceedings (Meudon).  Oh, then there was my appt. as tenured physics lecturer at Harrison College, but I guess this was too "small fry" for McAdams to consider "reputable".

Conveniently, McAdams leaves out any mention of my physics books including the most recent 'Modern Physics: Notes, Problems and Solutions', and 'Selected Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics'. But we give him a break here, because any dope that can't even correctly nail the number of years I've been an atheist assuredly wouldn't be able to grasp the use of the Landau contour - say applied to the 2-stream instability!

He then bellyaches that  "usually peer review means reviewed by a bone fide expert" - but two things here: 1) I never claimed the review was "peer-reviewed" from a "scholarly journal", and 2) I am most certainly a bona fide expert on the JFK assassination having already written one of the most extensive books of analysis ever: 'The JFK Assassination- The Final Analysis' based on more than 35 years' research.
-
To the point (1),  since the average peer- reviewed academic paper in a scholarly journal is only read by 0.12 people on average (stat from one American Physical Society survey) then why put it in such a limited venue when a more popular one assures far more readers? (And indeed, the link above for my blog review has now had over 160 hits  - not a lot - but I think 160 > 0.12!  Also, I have a review posted at amazon.com as well.)

Of course, all this deflection from the book review and huff and puff about me and my credentials is intended to buffalo readers who then won't stop to ask why this guy hasn't written a single sentence about the content of the book review.  As opposed to interjecting half-assed knowledge concerning my background, why  not instead show exactly where my use of Poisson statistics (and Charnin's by extension) is wrong?  How hard can that be IF you know what you're talking about? Why not criticize the probability basis and assumptions? Well, again, because it's much easier for a non-serious propaganda tool to use irrelevant smear tactics than to actually examine the book review and critique it!

But see, hit men and crank disinformationists like Johnny  Mac are only interested in put downs as a tool to distract readers from the truth and this has been McAdams M.O. from the time he darkened usenet JFK newsgroups with his Darth Vader persona.

Long before there was Twitter, Facebook or Blogs, there was something called Usenet where entities known as "newsgroups" sprang up to encourage debate and discussion on any number of issues, topics.  I had observed McAdams putdowns in the (un-moderated)  newsgroup alt. conspiracy.jfk for some months before actually engaging in a one on one exchange with him. This was concerning my REAL FAQ  that I had published in the newsgroup as an antidote to a pro-lone nut FAQ by frequent poster John Locke. 

In one particular and unforgettable confrontation, McAdams complained about my reference to Jackie “climbing over the limo trunk” in an effort to retrieve part of JFK’s blown out skull fragment (later inferred to be the Harper bone fragment retrieved by William Harper). He insisted "she wasn't climbing over anything" to which I then replied, "Ok, let's say she's moving across it to the rear - which shows a frontal shot".  He tried to "debunk"  this as well but a picture is worth a thousand words. And in the one below (from the Zapruder film - frames 313-14) readers can see the FACT of Jackie's trunk motion for themselves:


Now really, if a guy can't even admit reality when it's staring him in the bleeping face, why would one wish to trust him on anything?  No serious person should because a man who'd deny reality would deny anything  - and also stoop to say anything to serve his agenda.  I mean this turkey wasn't even able to get the number of years I've been an atheist correct! If he is going to use my atheism against me in an attack mode I'd at least expect him to get minimal facts correct, but even this was too much.

McAdams is such a liar and tool that even when presented with testimony from the "bible" (Warren Commission) he usually rigorously defends, he won't budge if he's been exposed as an ass.   For example, in conjunction with the issue of Jackie going across the limo trunk I added her Warren Commission Testimony (from Volume Five of the special hearings) where she says:

"You know, then, there were pictures later of me climbing out the back, but I don't remember that at all."

And from her secret testimony (excised from original version), op. cit., p. 16:

"I was trying to hold his hair on. But from the front there was nothing. I suppose there must have been. But from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on."

 But once again, this jackass McAdams disputed the WC sources and said Jackie also must have been mistaken, as there was no time at which she climbed across the trunk. SO much for  .John's "debunking" which is largely a matter of denying reality.  The trouble is, when one denies reality there is no way to support his claims.

Perhaps the best information ever assembled on John McAdams (nee, “Paul Nolan”) was put together by Jim Hargrove. The basic thrust was to answer questions concerning McAdams and his background because it so much seems to fit the sort of CIA assets described in the CIA document 1035-960.

When McAdams blabbed (as he did in one forgettable  TIME  mini-interview in Nov. 2013) : "These people think the CIA cares about them. It does not!"

He misses the point. It isn't that the CIA "cares about" anyone personally, but only to the extent it can disrupt their discussions in assorted forums discussing the assassination.  Thus conforming to the words in the CIA document  1035-960 that explicitly state as one primary objective:  "To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics".

How can this be reconciled with a guy who "just likes to brawl"? Well, if brawling consumes more time than useful communication about facts (like Jackie's limo trunk action) and files (like Oswald's  201-289248 CI/SIG) than one can say the objective has been achieved.

If McAdams has at any time been a real CIA propaganda asset, it makes sense one of his first obligations would be to neutralize any outlets for serious JFK assassination discussion he doesn’t control (like his moderated newsgroup). Thus his intrusions into the un-moderated group shed definite light on his intentions.  Consider, for example, this post from  McAdams, Date: 14 Feb 1997 22:17:02 -0700:

“You buffs have been cooperating marvelously with my scheme to make this group a shambles. And you know the bizarre part? My scheme is not a secret. I have publicly announced it. I have made it perfectly obvious.  I have rubbed you buffs' noses in it. It's blatantly obviously to everybody.”
.John

Hmmmmmm......sounds like a fuckin' CIA asset to me. 

Now, let’s clear our heads and think about this a bit: Would a normal everyday professor of Political Science be doing these things?  Spending 8-12 hours a day on usenet newsgroups to sow chaos?  Would he be bragging about leaving a Usenet newsgroup a “shambles”?  It doesn’t add up.  Any real prof worth his salt would be working on research to submit for publication to a peer-reviewed journal, not acting the part of an overgrown adolescent  (with anger issues)  for most of every day!


Jim Hargrove, in his “McAdams FAQ” provides the Charter Policy written by McAdams himself for his own moderated group. Reading its first paragraph sheds a lot of light:

CHARTER AND MODERATION POLICY

This group will be for the purpose of providing an area for serious discussion and research of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The group will be moderated to prevent the noise and chronic personal attacks which have plagued alt.conspiracy.jfk and made it nearly useless as a vehicle for intelligent research. Questions surrounding JFK's death have made this one of the most talked about and controversial issues of our generation. This will be the one usenet group which deals seriously with this important topic.

But as Hargrove observes:

“One supposes that since the noise and chronic personal attacks which have plagued the alt.conspiracy.jfk group were and are part of McAdams freely admitted plans to turn the group into a shambles, the moderated group can only be seen as his personal vehicle for selective manipulation of content”

Which is totally logical, and again, it comports with CIA doc. 1035-960!  Hargrove then quotes McAdams from a letter written to The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

“(Dr) Gary Aguilar accused me on the politics forum of being 

A CIA sponsored disinformationist because I was once the 

Marquette Official representative of the I.C.P.S.R. an utterly

 unspooky social science data archive.”

In truth, The ICPSR is housed in the Institute for

Social Research, or ISR, which itself  has been documented

as a recipient of “spook” (e.g. CIA) research grants.

 They also have a webpage:

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/

Which the interested reader can explore for himself. My own take is that it could easily be a CIA  (Clandestine Operations) front for  psy-ops intelligence operations which could easily include anti-conspiracy propaganda. We already know that the founder of American Propaganda – Edward Bernays – was steeped in the social sciences and firmly believed the public was too irrational to entrust to its own thought and conclusions and therefore had to be manipulated toward specific directions. In his own words: 

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized 

habits and opinions of masses is an important element in 

democratic society”

What better way to do that than from a networked academic consortium –

 interwoven into all the  social sciences – with access to a central data clearinghouse

 that’s amassed everything from the   latest frequency of teen pregnancies, to

 homicides by race or gender, or assorted other historical   arcania. It’s literally

 a propagandist’s dream.

Those who prefer to demur to think about this need to read Chris Hedges, 'Empire of Illusion'.

Hedges has warned (, p. 129):

 "Psychologists, in and out of government, have learned how to manipulate social behavior. "

He goes on to note that such manipulation has as its primary objective an adherence to conformity, especially of thought. (The cult of "positive psychology" is particularly involved in this, but psychologists are also part of the CIA's ongoing psych agenda, as first demonstrated in "Operation Mockingbird")

Clearly, McAdams - his mindless minions and his pathetic pseudo-history site - are part of the axis of the "unspeakable" ,  using the term from James Douglass book, JFK and the Unspeakable. Douglass notes it was originally coined by the monk,  Thomas Merton, to refer to the unspeakable evil of deliberate denial of the truth. In this case,  behind one of the most dastardly crimes ever committed - and against we, the American people.

John McAdams has a lot to answer for, at least as much as the climate change deniers who've taken our planet to the precipice by their dissembling. In McAdams' case, he's deliberately helped to smother the truth  concerning JFK's murder, while character-assassinating sundry truth tellers, enabling a festering national sore to persist over a half century.

See also:

https://ceabbate.wordpress.com/recent-controversy/

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/05/educating-australian-bloke-on-basic.html

Scott Aaronson: In Over His Head on JFK Assassination (Part Two - Rebutting His 20 Reasons for 'Oswald Dunnit')

I now examine Scott Aaronson's "20 Reasons" to assert Lee Oswald was the lone gunman in the JFK assassination, based on what he calls "general principles" but which I call out as slacker principles: do as little as possible- avoid any details, attend to the worst possible "investigators" (Gerald Posner), and in general let ignorance trump facts at every turn.  Basically, Aaronson brings to bear a smug laziness that he'd never use if he wanted to publish a paper, say in the Physical Review (one of its fine journals).  He does this because he treats JFK assassination research akin to a kiddie hobby or pastime.


1.   Conspiracy theorizing represents a known bug in the human nervous system. Given that, I think our prior should be overwhelmingly against anything that even looks like a conspiracy theory".

This is not a reason but an assertion, that needs to be proven, demonstrated. Aaronson really ought to know better than to trot such bollocks out for public consumption, as if he's even an expert in the human nervous system.  Where has this been published? (He puts out a link to a cartoon -as if any intelligent person would accept that)  In what peer-reviewed journal of neurobiology?  Further, the fact this is psycho-babble is patently clear by the fact he puts all possible conspiracy  examples under the same umbrella - from faked lunar landings to Joe Klein's example (in the recent TIME - see Part I) of the feds buying up ammo to raise the prices so gun owners can't afford it - to the JFK assassination. In this way, he demeans the event and insults the people who've done serious research including Peter Dale Scott, James Douglass ('JFK and the Unspeakable'), Mark Lane and many others. In this way he actually insults the memory of the 35th President.

2. The shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby created the perfect conditions for conspiracy theorizing to fester. 

In fact, the shooting of Oswald showed most of us at the time, who had the intellect to see it, that whoever was in charge of the assassination made sure the one person who might shed light wouldn't live to say anything. Only much later (30 + years) did the file release from the JFK Records Act confirm out worst fears - that Ruby was commissioned to kill Oswald as part of ZR/Rifle and Staff D, the super secret assassination program run under spook William Harvey- assisted by James Jesus Angleton.  See e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-second-assassination-today-fifty.html

"Fester"? Well, yeah - the Operation Mockingbird disinformationists in the media had festered for years allowing the anti-conspiracy memes to spread far and wide! (Yet Aaronson doesn't seem to have even heard of Mockingbird). It wasn't until actual documents could finally be released (LBJ had originally sealed them until 2039)  under the 1992 JFK Records Act that headway could be made.

3. Other high-profile assassinations to which we might compare this one—for example, those of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Yitzchak Rabin…—appear to have been the work of “lone nuts,” or at most “conspiracies” of small numbers of lowlifes.  So why not this one?

Because the EVIDENCE doesn't indicate it! Moreover, the evidence is now compelling that Martin Luther King was also assassinated in a conspiracy, as well as Robert Kennedy.

In the case of the King assassination, the breakthrough came with William F. Pepper's book Orders to Kill,  Pepper learned  that a film existed of the King assassination. It was in the hands of Army psyops (psychological operations) officers who had been in Memphis that day to take photographs of everything, everyone in the vicinity of the Lorraine Motel.  One of the officers, as Pepper noted - in his speech and in the book - just happened to spin his camera around on hearing the shot, toward the bushes in front of the motel.  The film held the clues Pepper needed and rather than do an injustice to the findings, I think blog readers need to get hold of the entire book, or at least avail themselves of this abbreviated account of Pepper's findings from the speech he gave on the subject 12 years ago:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.pdf

The mechanics and basis  of the conspiracy for Robert Kennedy's assassination and using Sirhan B. Sirhan as another patsy was superbly described in Patrick Nolan's book,  CIA Rogues Killing Kennedys (Chapter 7 - 'Sirhan Bishara Sirhan - An Involuntary Pawn'.) Nolan's breakthrough came via released files and also managing to find security personnel at the Ambassador Hotel at the time and interviewing them. This also conforms with James Douglass' take (op. cit.) that all three were killed as part of the same extended plot masterminded by the national security apparatus.

The meme that all conspiracies are lone nut done is also stupid. For hundred of years - from the time of the Borgias - assassinations have occurred in Europe and few Europeans -whether German, Swiss or Italian, buy the codswallop they were done by lone nuts. As Rolf, a former Spezialdienst in Switzerland put it while we were in St. Gallen:  "Believing lone assassins were responsible for all the assassinations in Europe is to us like a child believing a single man - St. Nicholas- could deliver all presents around the world in a single night before Christmas. It's stupid!"

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/germans-tom-hanks-wasting-his-time-with.html

Further point: Aaronson attempts to show that Clay Shaw, the subject of the Jim Garrison case, was innocent and his reputation was slandered by conspiracy freaks. He is totally wrong. Years later, with release of files under the JFK Records Act, it would become evident that Shaw was indeed a CIA Contract Agent. As CIA Doc. (JFK 1993: 6.28.16.07.26.560280) notes (Why couldn't Aaronson obtain this?) :

"A memorandum marked for files says that J. Monroe Sullivan, #280201, was granted a covert security  approval as of 10 December 1962 so he could be used in Project QKENCHANT [Clay L. Shaw has #402897]"

Under the CIA  banner QKENCHANT one is cleared for intelligence procurement. Such clearance meant you were a safe contact  for the Agency and hence could be used as a "cut out" , with the CIA giving you only a certain amount of information. Clay Shaw then, had the ability to recruit other agents, thereby granting them security approvals. From the available files disclosed long after Garrison's efforts ended, Shaw used his QKENCHANT clearance to "plan or coordinate CIA activities" as well as "initiate relationships with non-Agency persons or institutions." In this guise, Shaw was effectively part of the CIA's clandestine services with Covert Security Approval, working under cover. 

Again, why didn't Aaronson try to obtain the file instead of shooting from the hip with a red herring? The answer - as with his other questions - is he wasn't prepared to do the grunt work! It's easy to spin off nonsense from one's keyboard and not bother with niggling details!

4. Oswald seems to have perfectly fit the profile of a psychopathic killer (see, for example, Case Closed by Gerald Posner).

Citation of Posner's idiocy is one of the first markers the serious researcher uses to confirm a person writing about the assassination is on the wrong track. Assorted investigators have been able to  assess just how closely Posner adhered to the known facts in his book. 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- likely part of the mandate first elucidated in CIA document 1035-960 * (which I doubt Aaronson even knows about).

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

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.

More to Come!

* 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.

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.