50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Dan Rather And The CIA

Former CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather and former CBS News producer Les Midgeley apparently secretly met with CIA Director William Colby in 1975 "to discuss a forthcoming documentary on assassinations," according to Southeastern Massachusetts University Professor of Political Science Philip Melanson's 1990 book, Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S. Intelligence. The same book also noted:

"According to a September 6, 1975 `Memorandum of Conversation' authored by Colby (obtained by the author from the Agency's Kennedy assassination file), the meeting covered `a variety of matters,' but the topic of Oswald's possible connection to the CIA seems clearly to have been the central concern...The memo concludes on a hopeful note but refuses to leave things to chance.

"`The two gentlemen expressed appreciation for our discussion...From their attitude, I believe there is a chance that the program will indicate that there is no CIA connection with Oswald beyond that noted above...We must, however, insure that Mr. Rather does not learn anything which would cause the slightest doubt on the above account before he produces the program in November.'"

(Downtown 6/9/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Ruth Paine's Oswald Interest

In Chapter VI of its report, entitled "Investigation Of Possible Conspiracy," the Warren Commission stated that "Ruth Paine speaks Russian...and for this reaason was invited to a party in February of 1963 at which she became acquainted with the Oswalds." Yet, according to Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case by James DiEugenio, "...Although she testified that she met Oswald in 1963, Researcher Michael Levy has unearthed a Navy Department document which reports that Ruth Paine was requesting information about the family of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1957."

And as the Warren Commission noted in its Appendix XIII, "Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald," on the day before Oswald was hired to do temp work at the Texas School Book Depository, coincidentally, "Mrs. Paine called Roy S. Truly, superintendent of the Depository, who indicated that he would talk to Oswald if he would apply in person."

(Downtown 5/26/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's `Intelligence Role'

In its Appendix XII, "Speculations And Rumours," the Warren Commission Report stated the following:

"Rumors and speculations that Oswald was in some way associated with or used by agencies of the U.S. government grew out of his Russian period and his investigation by the FBI after his return to the United States. Insinuations were made that Oswald had been a CIA agent or had some relationship with the CIA and that this explained the supposed ease with which he received passports and visas...The Commission has concluded on the basis of its own investigations of the files of Federal agencies that Oswald was not and had never ben an agent of any agency of the U.S. Government (aside from his service in the Marines) and was not and had never been used by any U.S. Government agency for any purpose..."

Yet in his book Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case, James DiEugenio wrote the following:

"Colorado Democrat Gary Hart and Pennsylvania Republican Richard Schweiker had access to many classified intelligence files...In 1978, Schweiker...stated that the Warren Commission had collapsed. It was set up to numb the public in order for a huge coverup to be enacted. He then focused on Oswald's role in that charade:

"'Oswald was playing out an intelligence role...All the fingerprints I found during my 10 months on the Senate Select Committee point to Oswald being a product of, and interacting with, the intelligence community...'"

(Downtown 5/26/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: `Times' Coverage Of JFK Assassination

Although the Sulzberger Dynasty's New York Times claims to be interested in printing "all the news that's fit to print," the Times has apparently felt that news which contradicts the Warren Commission's official version of how JFK was actually eliminated in Dallas isn't fit to print. As Destiny Betrayed by James DiEugenio recalled:

"A summary of the Times' early devotion to the Warren Report includes: Tom Wicker's unprofessional failure in November 1963 to follow up diligently on the Parkland doctor's statement that JFK suffered wounds of entry into his throat; Arthur Krock's appraisal of the Report as `the definitive history of the tragedy'; Wicker's unqualified testimonial in the preface for Warren Commission counsel David Belin's book, Harrison Salisbury's endorsement of the Times' abridged version of the Report; the Times' shamelessly doctored and biased selection of testimony in The Witnesses..; its flagrant headline November 24, 1963, when Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby; the systematic violation of the pledge, taken after Oswald's death by then-managing editor Turner Catledge, to refer to Oswald as `the alleged assassin'; the removal on December 1, 1970, of searching pro-conspiracy questions in John Leonard's book review of Jim Garrison's Heritage of Stone from all but the early, bulldog edition..."

(Downtown 5/12/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Big Media Coverage Of JFK Assassination

Big Media institutions like the New York Times, CBS and the Washington Post have not appeared too eager to finally let people in the U.S. know who really was responsible for the elimination of JFK in Dallas. As Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and The Garrison Case by James DiEugenio noted:

"The Kennedy assassination and the Garrison investigation highlighted the shortcomings of the American print and electronic media. Their lack of vigor in seriously investigating the assassination and their gullibility in accepting the Warren Commission Report was staggering...Then with the exposure of the Garrison inquiry in February of 1967, we saw the other side of this eager embrace of the Report: a vicious smear campaign against those who expressed reservations about it...

"Some publications like the New York Times had then and still have a vested interest in seeing the official story prevail. Likewise, the Washington Post for years after the assassination ahd a policy of not reviewing books critical of the Warren Report...Many journalists just completely missed the story the first time around and do not like to admit that fact..."

(Downtown 5/12/93)

Did Jackie Kennedy Realize JFK's Body Was Stolen?

A number of writers have asserted that the body in the casket that was buried at JFK's gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery was actually not the slain body of JFK. In his 1968 book, The Day Kennedy Was Shot, Jim Bishop described Jackie Kennedy's strange reaction in the White House when she first observed the body that was contained in the coffin that was supposed to contain the body of her slain husband, in the early hours of November 23, 1963:

"The Secret Service man lifted the lid high...She stood looking in, still wearing his dried blood on her strawberry dress and on her stockings. She stared at the image and asked for scissors...She reached in and snipped a lock of hair. Robert Kennedy glanced...and turned his glance down. Mrs. Kennedy held the snip of hair and the scissors. Then she turned away. `It isn't Jack,' she said."

(Downtown 3/17/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: CIA Countered Critics Of Warren Report

In his introduction to Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case by James DiEugenio, Zachary Sklar noted that "Although we still do not know the full extent of the disinformation campaign against Garrison, some evidence of it surfaced in a CIA memo dated April 1, 1967, and released in 1977 under the Freedom of Information Act."

The CIA's April 1, 1967 memo, entitled "Countering Criticism of the Warren Report," was apparently sent to "Chiefs, Certain Stations and Bases," and it included the following recommendations:

"Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us...

"...We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active, however, addressees are requested:

"a. To discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)...Urge them to use their influence...

"b. To employ propaganda assets...Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for the purpose..."

(Downtown 5/12/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: LBJ's Hoover Commission

Although former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was apparently not too fond of JFK, he was apparently quite fond of LBJ. As Alien Ink: The FBI's War On Freedom Of Expression recalled:

"On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas...A Hoover friend of over 20 years was sworn in as President...Johnson was the only American President whose autographed photograph hung on the living-room wall of J. Edgar Hoover's home. The Director also kept a bust of Johnson in his dining room.

In his 1970 book, Hoover's FBI: The Men And The Myth, former FBI Agent William Turner described the nature of LBJ's relationship to former FBI Director Hoover:

"One of Lyndon Johnson's first requests upon ensconcing himself in the White House was for 1,200 dossiers on his political adversaries from the FBI's supposedly confidential files, plus the Bobby Baker volume [of LBJ's former aide]. Hoover, whose time for mandatory retirement was looming (only the president could extend it), was happy to oblige...

"Popular fable has it that the Hoover-Johnson friendship stemmed from nothing more than the fact they were neighbors when Johnson was in the Senate...

"But it was much deeper than that. In a very real sense, Hoover was part of the Texan's political family. [LBJ aide] Walter Jenkins' brother had long been an FBI agent in Amarillo, and one of LBJ's shirttail relatives moved from Texas state politics to the FBI (despite the fact that he was slightly under the height minimum), where his rise through the ranks was mercurial. And then there was old Clint Murchison, Hoover's bosom pal, who was one of Johnson's earliest political benefactors...

"The assassination of President Kennedy brought out the Hoover-Johnson team at its precision best. As Congress cranked up to investigate the momentous crime, Johnson took over with the announcement that he was forming his own blue-ribbon commission of inquiry and had asked the FBI to investigate. Less than three weeks after the assassination, far too little time to cover all the ground, Hoover handed the president a confidential summary report that concluded there was `no conspiracy.' Simultaneously...he leaked the report's contents to the press. Thus was the public inculcated with the `no consnpiracy' theory, and the Warren Commission was handed it as a fait accompli..."

(Downtown 4/14/93)