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Chapter 9
Control of the Media
As mentioned in Chapter 1, one of the two clever strategies used by the
Power Control Group in the taking of America has been the control of the
news media.
For those American citizens who steadfastly refuse to believe that all
of the American establishment news media could be controlled by the CIA
and its friends in the White House, the continuing support of the Warren
Commission's lone assassin conclusion by virtually all of the major news
media organizations in November, 1975, twelve years after the event,
must have been very puzzling indeed. Since 78% of the public believe
that there was a conspiracy in the case, there must be a series of
questions in the minds of the most intelligent of the 78% about the
media's position on the subject.[1]
This Chapter is intended to enlighten readers and to remind them of the
control exercised by the intelligence community and the White House over
the 15 organizations from whom the public gets the vast majority of its
news and opinions.
Let's begin with 1968-1969. By 1973 the American public had begun to
develop a skepticism toward information they received on television or
radio. Various news stories appearing in our national news media
through those years had brought about this attitude. Some examples are:
the Songmy-Mylai incident, the Pueblo story, the murder of Black Panther
Fred Hampton, the Pentagon Papers, the Clifford Irving hoax, the
Bangladesh tragedy and the India-Pakistan war, Hoover & FBI antics, the
Jack Anderson papers, and IT&T and the Republican National Convention.
The general reaction was bound to be, "Don't believe everything you
read, see or hear, especially the first time around, and more especially
if the story comes from Washington." In the case of the Pentagon
Papers, things we all had taken as gospel for nearly two decades
suddenly seemed to crumble.
To what extent can the national news media be held responsible for this
situation? What has happened to the inquiring reporter and the
crusading editor who are both searching for and printing the truth? If
a government or a president lies or keeps secrets, can the American news
media really find out about it? And if they do, what moral, ethical,
political or other criteria should they use in uncovering the lies and
presenting them to the public?
Vice President Agnew would have said, "The press is already going too
far." Members of the press would have said, "We must remain independent
and maintain the freedom of speech." Just how independent is the news
media? Is it controlled to some extent by Washington?
The answer to some of these questions can be found by taking an inside
look at the major national news media organizations during 1968 and 1969
and how they treated the most controversial news subject since World War
II. The assassination of John F. Kennedy and its aftermath is an all-
pervading, endless topic. It has yet to reach the Pentagon Papers,
Anderston papers, or Mylai stage of revelation. Precisely because it is
still such a controversial subject, verboten for discussion among all
major news media (unless the discussant supports the Warren Commission),
it serves as an excellent case study.
A categorical statement can be made that management and editorial
policy, measured by what is printed and broadcast in all major American
news media organizations, supports the findings of the Warren
Commission. This has been true since 1969, but it was not true between
1964 and 1969.
Of significance in this analysis and what it implies about the American
public's knowledge about the assassination and its aftermath is a
definition of "major American national news media." It can be
demonstrated that an overwhelming mass of news information reaching the
eyes and ears of Americans comes from about fifteen organizations. They
are, in general order of significance: NBC-TV & Radio CBS-TV & Radio,
ABC-TV & Radio, Associated Press, United Press, "Time-Life-Fortune-
Sports Illustrated," McGraw Hill "Business Week," "Newsweek," "U.S.
News & World Report," "New York Times" News Service, "Washington Post"
News Service, Metromedia News Network, Westinghouse Radio News Network,
Capital City Broadcasting Radio Network, the North American Newspaper
Alliance, and the "Saturday Evening Post" (the "Post" is, of course, now
defunct.)
There are some subtle reasons for this, not generally appreciated by the
average citizen. Television has, of course, become the primary source
of information. For any nationally circulated news story, local
stations rely heavily on film, videotape and written script material
prepared and edited by the three networks. Once in a while Metromedia
may also send out TV material. In effect, this means that editorial
content for a vast majority of the television information seen by
American citizens everywhere originates not only with three or four
organizations but also with a very small number of producers, editors
and commentators in those networks.
A large majority of any national news items printed by local newspapers
originates in a small number of press-wire services. AP and UP dominate
this area, with selected chains of papers subscribing to a lesser extent
to new services of the "New York Times," "Washington Post," North
American Newspaper Alliance, and a very small percentage receiving
information from papers in Los Angeles, Chicago and St. Louis.
In a national news story of major significance such as the assassination
of John Kennedy, the smaller local papers rely almost exclusively on
their affiliated news services. Economic reasons dictate this
situation. The small paper can't afford to have reporters everywhere.
The major newspapers might send a man to Dallas for a few days to cover
the assassination, or they might send a man to New Orleans to cover the
Clay Shaw trial. But even the major papers can't afford to cover every
part of a continuing story anywhere around the world. So they too rely
on UP and AP for much of their material. They also rely on AP, UP and
Black Star[2] for most of their photographic material.
In the case of news magazines, the holding corporations become important
in forming editorial policy in a situation as controversial as the
assassination of JFK. Time Inc. and "Life," "Newsweek" and the
"Washington Post," "U.S. News," and McGraw Hill managements all became
involved.
Fifteen organizations is a surprisingly small number, and one is led to
conjecture about how easy or difficult it might be to control or dictate
editorial policy for all of them or some appreciable majority of them.
An article in "Computers and Automation"[3] reprinted a statement by
John R. Rarick, Louisiana Congressman and an entry made in the
"Congressional Record" bearing on this subject. In the reprint, the
"Government Employees Exchange" publication is quoted as stating that
the CIA New Team used secret cooperating and liaison groups after the
Bay of Pigs in the large foundations, banks and newspapers to change
U.S. domestic and foreign relations through the infiltration of these
organizations. The coordinating role at "The New York Times" was in the
custody of Harding Bancroft, Executive Vice President.
A useful analysis consists of examining what happened organizationally
and editorially inside each of the fifteen companies following the
assassination of President Kennedy. My personal knowledge, plus
information available from a few sources connected with the major news
media, permits such an analysis to be made for eleven of the fifteen.
They are: NBC, CBS, ABC, Time-Life, "The New York Times," "Newsweek,"
Associated Press, United Press, "Saturday Evening Post," Capital City
Broadcasting, and North American Newspaper Alliance. In addition, the
performance of nine local newspapers and TV stations directly involved
in the events in Dallas and New Orleans will be analyzed. These
include: "Dallas Times Herald," "Dallas Morning News," Fort Worth "Star
Telegram," Dallas CBS-Affiliate WBAP, "New Orleans Times Picayune," "New
Orleans Times Herald," and New Orleans NBC-Affiliate WDSU-TV.
Most of these organizations had reporters and photographers in Dallas at
the time of the assassination or within a few hours thereafter. Most of
them had direct coverage available when Jim Garrison's investigation
broke into the news in 1967 and during the trial of Clay Shaw in New
Orleans in 1969. For many of them the Shaw trial became the running
point in the changing of editorial policy toward the assassination. For
a few, the Garrison investigation and the Shaw trial took on the aspect
of waving a red flag in front of a bull. They became directly involved
in a negative way and thus not only reported the news, but also biased
it.
Immediately following the assassination the media reported nearly
everything that had obviously happened. All was confused for the first
few days. The killing of Oswald by Ruby on live television produced
even greater confusion.
For one year the major media reported everything, from probable
Communist conspiracies to the lone assassin theory. The media waited
for the Warren Report, and when it was issued in October of 1964 many of
the major media fell into line and editorially backed the Commission's
findings. Some questioned the findings and continued to question them
until 1968 or 1969. "The New York Times" and "Life" magazine fell into
this category. But by the time the Shaw trial ended in March 1969,
every one of the fifteen major news media organizations was backing the
Warren Commission and they have continued to maintain this editorial
position since.
The situation would perhaps not be so surprising had not the internal
assassination research teams in several of these organizations
discovered the truth about the Kennedy killing between 1964 and 1968.
These teams examined the evidence and thoroughly analyzed it. No one
who has ever taken the trouble to objectively do just that has reached
any conclusion other than conspiracy.
In each and every case the internal findings were overruled, suppressed,
locked up, edited and otherwise altered to back up the Warren
Commission. Management at the highest editorial and corporate level
took the action in every instance. Before drawing any further
generalization about the performance of the media in the JFK case, it
will be revealing to examine what happened and specifically who took
what actions in the case of the eleven national organizations and the
nine local ones listed earlier.
Time-Life
The Time Inc. organization let "Life Magazine" establish its editorial
policy while "Time" published more or less standard "Time-Life" stories.
"Life" became directly involved in the assassination action and evidence
suppression from the very beginning, on November 22, 1963.
"Life" purchased the famous Zapruder movie from Abraham Zapruder on the
afternoon of the assassination for about $500,000. The first negative
action took place when "Life" and Zapruder began telling the lie that
the price was $25,000 (which Zapruder donated to the fund raised for the
widow of Dallas policeman, J. D. Tippit, who had also been murdered that
day). Apparently, both "Life" and Zapruder were ashamed that he
profited by the event. He lived in fear that the true price would be
revealed until the day he died.
As many readers know, the Zapruder film (viewed in slow motion) proves
there was a conspiracy because of the backward motion of the President's
head immediately following the fatal shot. It proves the shot came from
the grassy knoll to the right and in front of the president while
Oswald's purported position was very nearly directly behind him. The
film also helps establish that five, and not three shots, were fired,
and that one of them could not have been fired from Oswald's supposed
sniper's nest because of the large oak tree blocking his view.
"Life" magazine never permitted the Zapruder film to be seen publicly
and locked it up in November 1968 so that no one inside or outside
"Life" could have access to it, automatically becoming an "accessory
after the fact". "Life" helped protect the real assassins and committed
a worse crime than the Warren Commission.
In answer to those defenders of "Life" who will say, "But `Life' turned
over a copy of the Zapruder film to the Warren Commission, and it is
available in the National Archives," let's look at the facts. "Life"
did not supply the copy of the film now resting in the Archives. That
copy came from Zapruder's original to the Secret Service to the Warren
Commission to the Archives. It is available for viewing by the few
people fortunate enough to visit the Archives. It can not be duplicated
by anyone, and copies can not be taken out of the Archives or viewed
publicly in any way. The Archive management responsible for the Kennedy
assassination records state that the "Life" magazine ownership of the
Zapruder film is what prevents copies from being made available outside
the Archives.
The Warren Commission did not see the film in slow motion. Nor does the
average Archives' visitor get to see it in slow motion or stop-action.
Yet the most casual analysis of the film in slow motion convinces anyone
to conclude there was a conspiracy.
Thus "Life" magazine is an important part of the efforts to suppress
evidence of conspiracy.
"Life" was involved in several other ways as an accessory after the
fact. The organization began its efforts to discover the truth about
the assassination in 1964 when it assigned Ed Kern, an associate editor,
to investigate. By the fall of 1966, Kern had become convinced that the
basic evidence pointed to conspiracy. "Life" management was also
apparently convinced; they published articles in November 1965 and
November 1966 questioning the Warren Commission's conclusions.
In the fall of 1966 "Life" transferred Richard Billings from their Miami
office to headquarters in New York. His assignment was to take over the
investigation of the Kennedy assassination, and to head a team of
several people working full time on it. One of Dick Billings'
objectives was to search for and acquire as much of the missing
photographic evidence as possible.
This author initiated a similar search, independent from "Life"
magazine, in September 1966. As often happens, people with common
objectives decided to work together. Billings and the author arrived at
a tacit understanding that any JFK assassination photographs, including
TV films or private movies, found by either would be brought to the
other's attention. In exchange for access to "Life"'s photographic
collection (including the Zapruder film and slides), the author agreed
to give "Life" the results of any analyses of the photographic evidence.
In cases where the author could not afford to acquire some new piece of
evidence, "Life" would offer to purchase the materials from the owners
and supply copies to the author.
In this manner the author discovered and helped "Life" magazine acquire
the largest collection of photographic evidence of the JFK
assassination, outside of the author's personal collection and the
collection now located at the headquarters of the Committee to
Investigate Assassinations in Washington, D.C. Among the photos
discovered were:
The Dorman movie Private
The Wilma Bond photos Private
The Robert Hughes movie Private
The David Weigman TV footage NBC
The Malcolm Couch TV footage ABC
The Jack Beers photos "Dallas Morning News"
The William Allen photos "Dallas Times Herald"
The George Smith photos Ft. Worth "Star Telegram"
The John Martin movie Private
Hugh Betzen's photo Private
(See "Computers and Automation," May 1970)
Many of these were important in proving conspiracy and some showed
pictures of the real assassins.
The "Life" team headed by Billings was in the process of discovering a
great deal about the conspiracy during the 1966-1968 period. While
editorially not taking a strong position favoring conspiracy, "Life" did
take a position that favored a new investigation by the government.
This was editorially summed up in a lead cover story on the fourth
anniversary of Kennedy's death in November 1967 with the title, "A
Matter of Reasonable Doubt". In that issue, John Connally and his wife
were shown examining the Zapruder film's frames and concluding that he
had been hit much later in the film than the Warren Commission claimed.
This meant that two bullets struck the two men and, by the Commission's
own admission, pointed automatically to the conspiracy.
The government naturally did not respond to "Life"'s suggestion for a
new investigation, so nothing ever came of that editorial policy.
Billings, however, continued his team's efforts and in October 1968 was
preparing a comprehensive article for the November anniversary issue.
The author continued to work with him and continued being given access
to the photos right up to October 1968.
It was at that point in time that a drastic change in management policy
occurred at "Life" magazine. Dick Billings was told to stop all work on
the assassination; his entire team was stopped. All of the research
files, including the Zapruder film and slides and thousands of other
film frames and photographs, were locked up. No one at the magazine was
permitted access to these materials and no one (including the author)
was ever allowed to see them again.
Simultaneously, editorial and management policy toward the assassination
changed to complete silence. Billings and crew were not allowed to
discuss the subject at "Life," let alone work on it. In November 1968
the article Billings had been working on was turned into a non-entity.
A few of the hundreds of photographs collected by the author and
purchased by "Life" were published in the article, along with an
innocuous commentary. Credit for discovering the photos was given to a
number of people at "Life" magazine in New York and Dallas, not to the
individuals who actually found them.
That article, published nearly nine years ago, was the last word "Life"
has ever uttered about their extensive research probe and their feelings
about a conspiracy. Dick Billings moved to Washington, D.C. to become
editor of the Congressional Quarterly and is a member on the board of
directors of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CTIA).
Who made the policy change decision at "Life" and why? Various high-
level conspiracy enthusiasts claim that the cabal behind the
assassination of the President brought extreme pressure to bear upon the
owners and management of Time Inc. to silence all opposition to the
Warren Commission findings. Others conclude it had something to do with
the CIA's control of "Life"'s editorial policy from inside. This author
takes no position on why. Dick Billings knows only that the decision
was made at high levels and passed downward and that it was irrevocable.
Repeated attempts by the CTIA and several independent assassination
researchers to break loose the basic evidence in "Life"'s possession,
such as the Zapruder film, the Hughes film, and the Mark Bell Film, met
with total opposition and a stone wall. Attempts to break loose the
Archives' copy of the Zapruder film or slides met the same stiff
opposition. In 1971 "Life" representatives indicated they might be
interested in selling rights to the Zapruder film for a sum in the
neighborhood of a million dollars.
CBS
The American public is aware of the editorial policy adopted by the
Columbia Broadcasting System toward the Kennedy assassination because of
a special four-part series with Walter Cronkite which was broadcast on
network TV in prime time in the summer of 1967.[4] That series, while
taking issue with some of the work of the Warren Commission *and
criticizing the Dallas police*, the FBI and the Secret Service,
nevertheless backed all of the basic Warren Commission conclusions.
Anyone watching the Cronkite series might have wondered why the basic
evidence presented by CBS in an itemized format for each of several
areas in the case, did not always seem to point to the conclusion
reached at the end of each section. The conclusion always agreed with
the Warren Commission's comparable conclusion. Some viewers may even
have noticed Cronkite's double-take after reading through the basic
evidence and then reading the phrase, "and the conclusion is!" It
seemed as though he didn't believe the conclusion and hadn't seen it
until he came to it in the script.
Actually, that is exactly what happened. CBS management caused the
entire script to be changed from one concluding conspiracy to a script
supporting the Warren Commission in the last week before the first part
of the series went on the air. Cronkite had not seen the entire script
until the program went on. Time had not permitted changing all of the
points of evidence, so in most cases they were unchanged and only the
conclusion was changed.
How did this come about? Who decided to change the script at the last
moment and why? Again there are control theories extant, but the
author's personal relationships to CBS people might help to shed a
little light on the subject.
The discussion with all of the CBS people always centered on evidence of
conspiracy and the CBS-TV film footage taken at the assassination site.
Bob Richter was the most knowledgeable of all the aforementioned people
on the basic evidence and he was firmly convinced there was a
conspiracy. Bernie Birnbaum was convinced that a new investigation was
desirable and his wife was convinced there had been a conspiracy. Dan
Rather believed there was a conspiracy and so did Wes Wise.
CBS photographers Sandy Sanderson, Tom Craven, and Jim Underwood had
taken movie-TV footages showing evidence of conspiracy. Craven's
footage, for example, showed the assassin's get-away car driving away
from the parking lot area behind the grassy knoll about one minute after
the shots were fired. Sanderson filmed one of the assassins being
arrested in front of the Depository building about 30 minutes after the
shots. Most of this footage was either lost or locked up in the CBS
archives vaults in New Jersey.
Wes Wise so strongly maintained his opinion about conspiracy that he
broadcast appeals for new photographic evidence over the KRLD local TV
shows. This was done against the orders of Eddie Barker. Wes became
Mayor of Dallas, elected in 1971 and defeated the Dallas-established
oligarchy. He actually received a new piece of photographic evidence
based on his TV appeal from a Dallas citizen named Bothun, who had taken
a picture of the grassy knoll a few moments after the shots.
The script for the Cronkite series was being edited and was going
through its final preparation stages in May and early June. The author
was in constant touch with Wise, Birnbaum and Richter during this period
and was informed about the basic thrust of the script toward conspiracy
and recommendations for a new investigation.
On May 8 a dinner meeting took place at the author's New York club with
Mr. and Mrs. Birnbaum. There, Mrs. Birnbaum and the author tried to
convince Bernie that he should take a stronger position on a new
investigation.
On May 18, Bob Richter and one of Jim Garrison's investigators met in
the National Archives with the author and reviewed the evidence of
conspiracy. On June 2, 3 and 4 in Dallas, the author showed Bernie
Birnbaum and Wes Wise a film taken by Johnny Martin that showed three of
the assassins and their cohorts on the grassy knoll running toward the
parking lot a few seconds after firing two shots. Wise and Birnbaum
tried to interest Barker and others in taking a look at the film.
On June 14 Bob Richter invited the author to meet Midgely, Lister and
Wallace at CBS in New York where an interview was being taped with Jim
Garrison for use in the series. At that time Garrison, Richter and the
author spent some time with the producer and his assistant discussing
the evidence of conspiracy.
Finally, on June 20, just five days before the program was to go on the
air, the author met with Richter and Dan Rather in the Washington, D.C.
CBS studios. The script was reviewed by Richter and Rather in the
author's presence. The gist of the conversation was that Rather and
Richter agreed that the conclusions stating conspiracy had to be made
even stronger than they were at that time.
The day before the program was aired, Bob Richter assured the author
that the theme would point to conspiracy and demand a new investigation.
The author telephoned Richter immediately after the first broadcast and
asked what had happened. Richter was devastated. He could not
understand what had happened. From that time forward his course
paralleled that of Dick Billings. He resigned from CBS in disgust and
formed his own company, Richter-McBride, in New York. It was his
original intent to make a film about the JFK assassination based on his
own research and the films he could obtain. However, the massive
suppression of the assassination, especially the suppression of the
Zapruder film by Time-Life films, cancelled Richter's plans for a film.
Correspondence with Cronkite and others determined that the decision to
change the script, distort and hide CBS's own findings and back up the
Warren Commission to the hilt came from Midgely and Lister. How much
higher did the decision go? Richard Salant was head of the CBS News
Division then and, of course, William C. Paley was (and still is)
chairman of the board.
By an odd coincidence, in a sequel to the above CBS story, the author
had an opportunity to learn a little more about Mr. Paley's knowledge.
Jeff Paley, William Paley's son, returned to the United States from
Paris in the winter of 1967-1968, where he had been writing news stories
and a news column for "L'Express" and for the North American Newspaper
Alliance, a group serving small papers in the United States. Jeff had
become convinced there was a conspiracy in the JFK case and came to
interview Garrison and others and to do a story for French papers.
(European papers and magazines always believed and still do believe in
the JFK assassination conspiracy.) He met at length with Richter and
the author and became quite disturbed at what CBS had done. He
approached his father with the idea that CBS had been wrong in the
Cronkite series and that something should be done to rectify the
situation.
Bill Paley told his son that he knew nothing about the details of the
programs or the work lying behind the conclusions. He said Midgely had
been responsible for the entire production. He told Jeff that if he
could show proof that the CBS conclusions were wrong and there had been
a conspiracy, that he would fire Midgely and all the rest of the team
and do the whole thing all over again under new management.
Needless to say, this did not happen and the mystery about where the
decision to suppress the truth came from within CBS is as deep as it
ever was.
Since June 1967, CBS has remained editorially silent on the subject of
the JFK assassination. The photographic evidence of conspiracy in their
possession remains locked up and suppressed. The Craven sequence--film
footage by the CBS photographer (who had been in the parade's camera car
# 1) of a car driving out of the Elm Street extension (left-to right in
front of the Texas School Book Depository) within 20 seconds of the
assassination--was seen by the author and Jones Harris in New York, but
was cut out of the film where it appeared prior to the time the author
and Richter began searching for it. There is little question that CBS
is an accessory after the fact.
CBS edited out one other important piece of TV film. In November 1969,
Walter Cronkite conducted a three-part interview with Lyndon B. Johnson
at his ranch in Texas. The series was broadcast in the spring of 1970
and on the first program an announcement was made that portions of the
taped interview had been deleted at Lyndon Johnson's request, "for
reasons of national security."
What actually happened and what Johnson had said six months earlier was
made public due to a leak at CBS. The story appeared in newspapers all
over the U.S. several days before the broadcast.
Johnson told Cronkite that there had been a conspiracy in the
assassination of President Kennedy, that Oswald was not a lone madman
assassin, and that he, Johnson, had known it all along. Johnson
reviewed the tapes a week or so before the program was to go on the air
and then called up the CBS management, asking that his remarks be
deleted.
Someone at CBS who was very disturbed by this called a member of the
Committee to Investigate Assassinations and told him what had been
deleted. This led to the story being printed in the newspapers.
"The New York Times"
The record of the "Times" through the 1969-1971 period follows the same
pattern as CBS and "Life" magazine editorial policies.
The early editorials following the Warren Report supported the
Commission. The "Times" cooperated by publishing much of the report in
advance. In 1965, however, editorials began to appear that questioned
the Commission's findings and suggested a new investigation. In 1964
the "Times" formed a research team headed by Harrison Salisbury to
investigate the assassination. The team of six included Peter Khiss and
Gene Roberts. Their conclusions were never made public by the "Times"
but indications point to their finding evidence of conspiracy.
Khiss, in particular, through the 1966-1968 period in several meetings
and discussions with the author, expressed doubts about the Warren
Report and questioned the lone madman assassin theme. When the Garrison
investigation made the news, the "Times" began a regular campaign to
undermine Garrison's case, to support the Warren Commission, and finally
(during the Clay Shaw trial) to completely distort the news and the
testimony presented. Martin Waldron was the reporter sending in the
stories from the Shaw trial, but someone in New York edited them to
completely change their content. The author saw the story written by
Waldron on the first day of the trial and the final version appearing in
the "Times." The two were completely different, with Waldon's original
following the actual trial proceedings very closely.
The author, writing under the pen name of Samuel B. Thurston, postulated
the possibility that "The New York Times," on selected subjects,
including the JFK assassination, was controlled by the CIA through their
representative among top management, Mr. Harding Bancroft.[5]
In the summer of 1968, the author discovered a remarkable similarity
between the sketch of the assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King and one of
the three tramps arrested in Dealey Plaza following the assassination of
President Kennedy. Peter Khiss wrote a story about this and it was
published by the "Times" in June, 1968. Apparently that was the final
straw for the "Times" management as far as Khiss was concerned. He was
not allowed to do any more research on assassinations or to discuss the
subject at the "Times." As he told the author in 1969, he doesn't
attend any press conferences about assassinations because he doesn't
like it when people in "Times" management say, "Here comes crazy old
Pete Khiss again with his conspiracy talk."
The apex of "The New York Times" actions and editorial positions on the
JFK assassination came in November and December 1971. They published
three items supporting the Warren Commission eight years after the
assassination, at a time when it seemed on the surface to be a dead
issue.
The first was a story about Dallas eight years later by an author from
Texas who wrote his entire story as though it were an established fact
that Oswald was the lone madman assassin firing three shots from the
sixth floor window of the Depository building and later killing police
officer Tippit.
The second was an Op-Ed page guest editorial by none other than David
Belin, a Warren Commission lawyer. He defended the Commission and
attacked the researchers. The third was a story by Fred Graham about
the findings of Dr. Lattimer, who was allowed to see the autopsy
photographs and x-rays of John Kennedy. Graham actually wrote most of
his story, which solidly backed up the Warren Commission due to
Lattimer's claims that the autopsy materials proved no conspiracy,
before Lattimer ever entered the Archives.
In other words, it appears that Graham knew what Lattimer was going to
find and say in advance. Either that or someone in Washington, D.C.
gave someone at the "Times" orders in advance to prepare the story for
the first page, upper left-hand corner, of the paper. It really didn't
make any difference whether Dr. Lattimer ever saw the x-rays and
photographs.
The concerted campaign on the part of the "Times" management could have
been timed to prevent a discovery of new evidence of conspiracy in the
autopsy materials. The reason for this possibility developing in the
November 1971 period is that the five-year restriction placed on the
autopsy evidence by Burke Marshall, a Kennedy family lawyer, expired in
November of 1971. Four well-known and highly reputable forensic
pathologists, Dr. Cyril Wecht of Pittsburgh, Dr. John Nichols of the
University of Kansas, Dr. Milton Helpern of New York City and Dr. John
Chapman of Detroit had already asked permission to examine the x-rays
and photos upon the expiration of the five-year period. All four were
known to question the Warren Commission's findings. What better way to
freeze them out of the Archives than to select a doctor who could be
trusted to back up the Commission (Lattimer had published several
articles doing just that), commission him to go into the Archives, and
then persuade "The New York Times" to publish a front page story in its
Sunday issue demonstrating that no one else need look at the materials
because they supported the Warren Commission's findings.
All attempts by researchers to convince "Times" management that the
other side of the story should be told have been completely ignored.
Lattimer's findings, if correct, actually prove conspiracy. The "Times"
has been informed of this but they have shut off all discussion of the
subject. The complete story of the complicity of the "New York Times"
in the crimes to which they have become an accessory would take up an
entire volume.[6]
The National Broadcasting Company became an active participant in the
government's efforts to protect Clay Shaw and to ruin Jim Garrison.
Two of NBC's high-level management people, Richard Townley of NBC's
affiliate in New Orleans, WDSU, and Walter Sheridan, executive producer,
became personally and directly involved in the Shaw trial. They were
indicted by a grand jury in New Orleans for bribing witnesses,
suppressing evidence and interfering with trial proceedings. NBC top-
level management backed Sheridan and Townley.
NBC produced a highly biased, provably dishonest program personally
attacking Garrison and defending Shaw prior to the trial. Frank McGee,
who acted as moderator, later had to publicly apologize for lies told on
the program by two "witnesses" whom NBC paid to give statements against
Garrison. The FCC ruled that NBC had to give Garrison equal time
because the program was not a news program but a vendetta by NBC against
Garrison. NBC did give Garrison 30 minutes (compared to their one-hour
attack) to respond at a later date. Sheridan was the producer of the
one-hour show.
With Sheridan and Townley so deeply involved, and with such an extremely
strong editorial position favoring the Justice Department, the Warren
Commission, and the lone assassin stance, suspicions were raised about
NBC's and RCA's independence.[7] At one point in 1967 the president of
NBC, according to Walter Sheridan, helped in the bribery efforts by
calling Mr. Gherlock, head of Equitable Life Insurance Company's New
York office, and asked for assurance that Perry Russo, who worked for
Equitable, would cooperate with NBC.
NBC is also the owner of several important pieces of photographic
evidence. A TV film taken by NBC photographer David Weigman was
suppressed by NBC and not made available to researchers. It shows the
grassy knoll in the background just a fraction of a minute after the
shots. Some of the assassination participants can be seen on the knoll.
Fortunately for researchers, NBC sold the Weigman film to the other
networks and to the news film agencies before realizing its importance.
The author was able to purchase a copy from Hearst Metrotone News.
NBC's affiliate, WBAP in Fort Worth, has several important film
sequences. James Darnell took several sequences on the grassy knoll and
in the parking lot which should contain important evidence. Dan Owens
took TV movies in and around the Depository building which should show
how the snipers' nest was faked on the sixth floor, and one of the
assassins in front of the building.
ABC
Of the three major television networks, ABC has remained more objective
and appears to be less under the thumb of the government than the other
two. For example, when NBC was busy defending the Warren Commission and
Clay Shaw and attacking Jim Garrison, ABC was giving Garrison a free
chance to express his views without interruption on their Sunday
program, "Issues and Answers." They have never taken an editorial
position one way or another on conspiracy. However, in the Robert
Kennedy assassination case, the investigation was suppressed at ABC.
The man heading the brief investigation was stopped and sent to Vietnam.
The man at ABC who called the shots in stopping the investigation and in
suppressing evidence in ABC's possession was a lawyer named Lewis
Powell.
The evidence owned by ABC is a video tape of the crowd in the Ambassador
Hotel ballroom before, during and after the shots were fired in the
kitchen. The ballroom microphones, including ABC's, picked up the sound
of only three shots above the crowd noise. Since Sirhan fired eight
shots, or certainly more than three, and since Los Angeles police tests
proved that Sirhan's gun could not be heard in the position of the
microphones in the ballroom, the ABC film and soundtrack is important
evidence of three other shots.
The sequence was originally included in the TV film of Robert Kennedy's
1968 campaign and assassination entitled, "The Last Journey." Following
a meeting at ABC when the management learned what the film showed, the
next TV broadcast of "The Last Journey" (scheduled for the following
week) was cancelled without any logical explanation. The next time the
film appeared on ABC (late 1971), the three-shot ballroom sequence had
been cut.
United Press International
Of all the fifteen major news organizations included herein, UPI has
come closest to really pursuing the truth about the JFK assassination.
Yet they, too, have suppressed evidence, have not had the courage of
their convictions in analyzing conspiratorial evidence, and by default
have become accessories after the fact.
Two different departments at UPI became involved in the photographic
evidence of the JFK assassination. The regular photo news service
department, which receives wire photos and negatives from many sources
all over the world, accumulated a large collection of basic evidence
both from UPI photographers and by purchasing wire service photos from
newspapers, Black Star, AP and other sources. This department has made
all of its photographs available to anyone at reasonable prices ($1.50
to $3.00 per print).
UPI photographer Frank Cancellare was in the motorcade and snapped
several important photographs. In addition, five other photographs at
UPI, taken by three unknown photographers, are significant. All of
these were purchased by the author from UPI.
The other department has not been as cooperative. Within the news
department at UPI, Burt Reinhardt and Rees Schonfeld have varied in
their attitude and performance. UPI news purchased the commercial
rights to two very important films shortly after the assassination.
These were color movies taken by Orville Nix and Marie Muchmore (private
citizens). Both show the fatal shot striking the President, and both
show evidence of conspiracy. In the Nix film, certain frames (when
enlarged) show one of the assassins on the grassy knoll with a rifle.
Both movies show a puff of smoke generated by another one of the men
involved in the assassination.
UPI, under the direction of Burt Reinhardt, did several things with the
Nix and Muchmore films. They produced a book, "Four Days," including
several color frames from the movies. They made a composite movie in
35mm from the original 8mm movies. The composite used the technique of
repeating a frame several times to give the appearance of slow motion or
stop action during key sections of the films. Reinhardt, Schonfeld and
Mr. Fox, a UPI writer, made the composite movie available to researchers
at their projection studio in New York in 1964 and 1965.
Fox and Schonfeld wrote an article for "Esquire" in 1965 which portrayed
the Nix film as proving the conspiracy theories about assassins on the
grassy knoll to be false. This was deemed necessary by UPI management
because a New York researcher and a photographic expert, after seeing
the Nix film at UPI, claimed it showed an assassin with a rifle standing
on the hood of a car parked behind the knoll.
The research team had used a few frames from the film in color
transparencies and enlarged them in black and white to show the gunman.
In 1964, UPI gave the Warren Commission copies of both the Nix and
Muchmore films for analysis. The films were later turned over to the
National Archives under a special agreement between UPI and the
Archives. This agreement reminds one of the agreements between the
Archives and the Kennedy family on the autopsy materials, and the
obscure one between "Life" magazine, the Commission, the Secret Service
and the Archives on the Zapruder film.
The UPI agreement prevents anyone from obtaining copies of the Nix and
Muchmore films or slides of individual frames for any purpose. The
agreement is just as illegal as the other two, yet it has been just as
effective in suppressing the basic evidence of conspiracy.
In 1967, UPI, apparently still not sure they would not be attacked by
researchers on what the Nix film revealed, employed Itek Corporation to
analyze the film. (At least it would appear on the surface that UPI did
the hiring.) Itek Corporation, a major defense contractor, did an
excellent job of obscuring the truth. In an apparently highly
scientific analysis using computer-based image enhancement, they
"proved" that not only was there no gunman on the grassy knoll, but
there was no person on the knoll at all during the shooting.
The final Itek report was made public and highly publicized by UPI. It
looked as though the UPI earlier claim of no gunman had been
scientifically substantiated. As a by-product, Itek got some great
publicity for their commercially available photo-computer image
enhancement system.
What the public did not know was that UPI gave Itek only 35mm enlarged
black and white copies of selected frames from the Nix film. The great
amount of detail is lost in going from 8mm color to 35mm black and
white. And UPI gave Itek carefully chosen frames from the Nix film that
did not show the gunman on the knoll.
UPI and Itek defined "the grassy knoll" in a very limited and carefully
chosen way so as to exclude five people (in addition to the fatal-shot
gunman) on the knoll who appear in the Nix film as well as in every
other photograph and movie taken of the knoll at the time the shots were
fired.[8] In addition, man No. 2, who had ducked down behind the stone
wall during the Nix film, could not be detected by Itek because they
only had the Nix film.
Three men standing on the steps of the knoll, and two men behind the
picket fence, were completely ignored or overlooked.
The author began to contact Schonfeld and Reinhardt in early 1967,
viewed the two films both at UPI and in the Archives, and requested
copies of the original 8mm color films or color copies of individual
frames. The response to the requests were negative for more than four
years. During this time, however, the author, a New York researcher,
and a photographic specialist, enlarged in color the correct frames from
the Nix film. The enlargements clearly show the gunman, not on top of a
car but in front of a car, with his rifle poised. He is standing on a
pedestal protruding from the eight-sided cupola behind the stone wall on
the knoll. The car is parked behind the cupola and can be seen in
several other photographs and movies.
Unfortunately, UPI's agreement with the researcher prevents making
public the color enlargements. UPI has consistently suppressed this
evidence. In 1971, they offered to make the film available for a very
large sum of money, but they have never agreed that it shows anyone on
the knoll and they will not make copies available for research.
The UPI editorial position (in articles, the book "Four Days," letters
and news releases) has supported the Warren Commission through the
years. The major difference between UPI and "Life" or CBS is that no
drastic reversal of management policy took place at UPI.
AP
Associated Press became an accessory after the fact by taking an action
unprecedented for a news wire service. It published a three-part report
by three AP writers in 1967, completely supporting the Warren
Commission. The report was transmitted by wire to all AP subscribers
over a three-day period and it occupied a total of nine to ten full
pages of the average newspaper. It was not news, but editorial policy
and took a position supporting the Warren Commission and the official
government propaganda about the assassination of John Kennedy.
Most small newspapers rely on UP and AP for their news stories. The
three-part AP report ran in hundreds of papers across the United States
without opposition commentary. For many this was the gospel at the
time. What more could the conspirators and their government protectors
have asked?
AP photographers were on the scene in Dallas during the assassination.
James Altgens, one of AP's men assigned to Dallas, took seven important
photographs in Dealey Plaza. Henry Burrows, an AP photographer from
Washington, D.C., was in the motorcade and snapped two pictures. Four
other AP photographers took ten important photographs. AP's photo
department and Wide World Photos in New York purchased many other
photographs taken in Dealey Plaza.
Meyer Goldberg, manager of Wide World Photos, set a policy early in the
1966-1967 period which placed AP in the position of partially
suppressing basic photographic evidence. The policy contained several
parts. First, Goldberg made it extremely difficult for anyone to obtain
access to the photographic evidence, particularly the negatives.
Second, he set a high enough price on copies of photographs ($17.50 for
one 8x10 black and white print) to freeze out all but commercially-
financed interests. Third, when an original negative was discovered,
the print order, when cleared by Wide World, was always cropped. (Full
negative prints showing important details in the Altgens photographs
were nearly impossible to purchase.) Whenever any suggestion was made
to Wide World that their photographs contained basic evidence of
conspiracy, Goldberg and AP management turned blue with anger and
literally refused to discuss the subject or permit research in their
files.
Various researchers, including Josiah Thompson, Raymond Marcus and the
author met this type of stiff opposition, but after many visits
discovered ways around it. The staff at Wide World in charge of the
photographic files was more cooperative, and at least one staff member
was completely convinced there was a conspiracy in the JFK
assassination.
Nevertheless, the broadly announced editorial policy and stance of
Associated Press between 1964 and 1972 fully supported the Warren
Commission and the lone assassin fable.
"Newsweek"
"Newsweek"'s editorial policy and coverage of the assassination and its
aftermath was largely the doing of one man, Hugh Aynesworth. Aynesworth
was the Dallas-Houston correspondent for "Newsweek" following the
assassination. He was in Dealey Plaza when Kennedy was killed, and he
turned in several stories during the days and weeks following November
22, 1963. His point of view was always closely allied with that of the
Dallas police, the district attorney and the FBI. He wholeheartedly
supported the Warren Report.
However, in May of 1967, after Garrison's investigation hit the news,
Aynesworth wrote a violent attack on Garrison's investigation, and it
was published in "Newsweek." Aynesworth accused Lynn Loisel, a Garrison
staff member, of bribing Al Beaubolf to testify about a meeting to plot
the assassination. Beaubolf later denied this accusation in a sworn
affidavit and proved Aynesworth and "Newsweek" to be fabricators of
information.
"Saturday Evening Post"
The position of the "Saturday Evening Post" solidified after the
Garrison probe became public. It was based in large part on the
reporting of one man, James Phelan. Phelan wrote a blistering article
for the "Post" published on May 6, 1967. He attacked Garrison and
Russo, and claimed that Russo's original statement to Assistant D.A.
Andrew Sciambra differed from his later testimony. In view of the
earlier editorial position of the "Post" when Lyron Land and his wife
questioned the Warren Commission findings, the Phelan article came as
somewhat of a surprise. In fact, the "Post" had taken a strong
conspiracy stand when in 1967 it published a long article excerpted from
Josiah Thompson's book, "Six Seconds in Dallas," and featured it on the
magazine's cover.
The Garrison investigation, however, turned the "Post" around. Phelan
became directly involved in the case, and in a sense was more of an
accessory than Walter Sheridan or Richard Townley. He travelled to
Louisiana from Texas, spent many hours with Perry Russo and other
witnesses, and generally obfuscated the Shaw trial picture.
Phelan joined the efforts to persuade Russo to desert Garrison and to
help destroy Garrison and his case. According to a sworn Russo
statement, Phelan visited his house four times within a few weeks.
Phelan told Russo he was working hand-in-hand with Townley and Sheridan,
that they were in constant contact, and that they were going to destroy
Garrison and the probe. Phelan warned Russo that he should abandon his
position and that Russo would be the only one hurt as a result of the
trial. Phelan claimed Garrison would leave Russo alone, standing in the
cold.
Phelan offered to hire a $200,000-a-year lawyer from New York for Russo
if he would cooperate against Garrison. He asked Russo how he would
feel about sending an innocent man (Clay Shaw) to the penitentiary.
Phelan left New Orleans and Baton Rouge and returned to New York, only
to telephone Russo several times and offer to pay Russo's plane fare to
New York to meet with him and discuss going over to Clay Shaw's side.
Phelan was subpoenaed by Shaw's lawyers during a hearing in 1967 because
his article attacked Garrison. Sciambra welcomed the opportunity to
cross-examine Phelan on the stand. He described the article as being
incomplete, distorted and tantamount to lying. Sciambra said, "I
guarantee that he (Phelan) will be exposed for having twisted the facts
in order to build up a scoop for himself and the `Saturday Evening
Post.'"
Sciambra went on to say that Phelan had neglected the most important
fact of all in his article. It was that Phelan had been told by Russo
in Baton Rouge that Russo and Sciambra had discussed the plot dialogue
(to assassinate JFK) at their initial meeting.
Capital City Broadcasting
This organization owns several radio stations in the capitol cities of
various states and in Washington, D.C. Their interests in the JFK
assassination increased in 1967 and 1968 when the Garrison-Shaw case
made headlines. A producer at Capital City, Erik Lindquist, decided to
do a series of programs designed to ferret out the truth. The author
furnished various evidence for scripts to be used in the programs.
After several months of work the project was cancelled, presumably by
top management, and the broadcasts never took place.
North American Newspaper Alliance
This newspaper chain, with papers affiliated in small communities
through the northern and eastern U.S., supported the Warren Commission
findings as did all the other major newspaper services and chains.
The Alliance also became involved in the Martin Luther King case and it
circulated the syndicated column by the black writer and reporter, Louis
Lomax, who had taken an interest in finding out what really happened in
the King assassination.
Lomax located a man named Stein who had taken a trip with James Earl Ray
from Los Angeles to New Orleans. The two retraced the automobile trip
of Ray and Stein, beginning in Los Angeles and heading through Arizona,
New Mexico and Texas. They were trying to find the telephone booth from
which Ray had called a friend named Raoul in New Orleans somewhere along
the route. Raoul, according to Ray, was the man who actually fired the
shot that killed King. Stein remembered that Ray told him he was going
to meet Raoul in New Orleans and that Ray phoned Raoul at someone's
office. Stein couldn't remember exactly where the phone booth was
because he and Ray had been driving non-stop day and night.
Lomax wrote a series of articles depicting Raoul as the killer and Ray
as the patsy. He sent them to the Alliance, a column each day, from the
places along the retraced trip he and Stein took. Finally, Lomax's
column announced they had found the phone booth at a gas station in
Texas and that he was going to obtain the phone number Ray had called in
New Orleans. He presumably was planning to visit the local telephone
company office the next morning and obtain the number.
That was the last Lomax column ever to appear in the North American
Alliance papers. He seemed to disappear completely. The readers were
left hanging, not knowing whether he obtained the phone number or
whether he discovered who it belonged to. The Committee to Investigate
Assassinations located Lomax several months later and asked him what had
happened.
He said he had been told by the FBI to stop his investigation and not to
publish or write any more stories about it. He said he found the phone
number and where it was located in New Orleans. He gave the number to
the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. He said he was afraid he
would be killed and decided to stop work on the case.
Whether North American Newspaper Alliance management knew about any of
this remains unknown. What is known, however, is that Louis Lomax died
in a very mysterious manner in 1970. He was traveling at a very high
speed and was found dead in a car crash, according to the State police
report. Lomax's wife says he was a very careful driver and never drove
at high speeds.
Dallas Newspapers
The two newspapers in Dallas, "The Times Herald" and "The Morning News,"
became accessories after the fact. They suppressed evidence of
conspiracy and evidence concerning the Dallas police role in framing Lee
Harvey Oswald. It was not immediately established that the management
policy of both papers supported the official positions taken by the
Dallas police and district attorney, the FBI and the Warren Commission.
During the first few days immediately following the assassination, both
newspapers printed anything that came along. The editions on November
22 through 25 make very interesting reading for the researcher because
the stories were printed before anyone had any idea what to suppress.
(For example, there are stories about other people being arrested, about
other rifles being found near Dealey Plaza, and about Oswald's rifle
being a Mauser and a British 303 model.)
Editorial and management policy took over within a couple of weeks and
the lone assassin story received all the attention from then on. The
two papers have not since made any independent inquiries, have not been
interested in any conspiratorial discussions, and have remained
completely faithful to the official governmental position.
There were some inquiring reporters around (like Ronnie Dugger, for
example, or Lonnie Hudkins), but they were eventually silenced by
management or the FBI and Dallas police. Photographers at the two
papers left town or were frightened out of talking about the case or
their photographs. Some of these photographs showed evidence of
conspiracy, including pictures of three conspirators under arrest in
Dealey Plaza. Other photographs proved that members of the Dallas
police planted evidence in the Depository building to frame Oswald.
Between the assassination and 1967, the management and owners of the
"Herald" and "News" were not completely aware of the significance of
some of the evidence in their files. Nor were they attempting to
control their reporters and news staff. For example, Hudkins found that
Oswald had been a paid informer for the FBI. He even found what his pay
number had been (S172). He took the information to Waggoner Carr, Texas
Attorney General, in January of 1964. Carr brought it to the attention
of the Warren Commission. Hoover denied it, and the matter died in
secret executive sessions of the Warren Commission.
Several photographs taken by "Dallas Morning News" photographer Jack
Beers proved that the police created the so-called "sniper's nest" from
which Oswald allegedly fired the shots. The pictures show the positions
of cartons in the sixth floor window before the police moved them.
Beers's photographs also indicate that the police made the large paper
bag found inside the Depository building.
Beers was permitted to use his photographs commercially in a book that
he published jointly with R. B. Denson, called "Destiny in Dallas." If
it were not for that event, researchers would probably never have seen
Beers's photographs. Once the "Morning News" editor, Mr. Krueger,
discovered that the photographs demonstrated both conspiracy and the
complicity of some of the Dallas police force, he locked them up. The
pictures remain suppressed to this date.
The "Times Herald"'s record is not much better. Through 1967 John
Masiotta, the man in charge of the assassination photographs taken by
William Allen, made copies available on a very limited basis. The basis
in the author's case was that a total of twelve pictures out of seventy-
three taken by Allen could be purchased. The author was allowed to
examine 35mm contact prints (about 3/4 X 1/2 inches) of the rest, and
the selection decision was extremely difficult. Three of Allen's
photographs showed the "tramps" under arrest who were part of the
conspiracy.
In 1968 the "Times Herald" management realized the implications of some
of Allen's pictures in pointing out the real assassins, and locked their
files. To date they have not permitted anyone to see the photos again
or to purchase copies.
One photograph taken by "Dallas Times Herald" photographer Bob Jackson
was so obviously in opposition to the official police position that it
was suppressed by late 1966. Jackson was riding in one of the news
photographer's cars in the motorcade with "Dallas Morning News"
photographer, Tom Dillard. As Jackson's car approached the Depository
building and travelled north on Houston Street, between Main Street and
Elm Street, Jackson snapped a picture (see map in May 1970 "Computers &
Automation" article). At the time, the Kennedy car was already on Elm
Street and was probably close to the position where the first shot was
fired. Jackson's car was eight cars behind Kennedy's (about twenty car
lengths).
Jackson can be seen taking this picture in the Robert Hughes film and in
some of the TV footage taken by other photographers. He also testified
that he took the picture. When the author asked Masiotta about the
Jackson photo in early 1967, he became very flustered and claimed to
know nothing about it. Jackson himself was finally located and, when
asked about it, became very angry and denied taking a picture. That
photograph has never been seen by anyone outside of the "Times Herald"
staff. It's not difficult to speculate about what it probably showed,
since the Hughes film, the Weaver photo, the Dillard photo and the Tom
Alyea TV sequence all show the same thing. Jackson's photo, without
doubt, showed "Oswald's window" in the Depository building empty when
Oswald should have been in it--an embarrassing counterpoint to Jackson's
testimony that he saw someone in that window with a rifle. If Jackson's
photo (or anyone else's for that matter) showed Oswald in the sixth
floor window, the whole world would have heard about it on November 22,
1963.
Fort Worth "Star Telegram"
The Fort Worth "Star Telegram" shines like a light in the Texas
darkness. It made photographic evidence from five of their
photographers, Joe McAulay, Harry Cabluck, Jerrold Cabluck, George Smith
and William Davis available to everyone. Even though the "Telegram"'s
editorial stance was eventually pro-Warren Commission, the
photographers, editors and the woman who ran the photo files were all
cooperative.
George Smith's photos showed the three members of the assassination team
under arrest. Jerrold Cabluck's aerial photos were instrumental in
establishing Dealey Plaza landmarks and topography. Joe McAulay's
photos of a man arrested in Ft. Worth in connection with the shooting
might yet become valuable.
TV Station WFAA
The second shining light in Texas was TV station WFAA, an ABC affiliate.
WFAA was very cooperative (albeit expensive) in providing copies of all
their photographic evidence. TV sequences by Tom Alyea, Malcolm Couch,
A. J. L'Hoste and Ron Reiland were made easily viewable and the copies
made available. Much of this evidence demonstrating conspiracy was also
sold to TV networks and newsreel companies.
WBAP -- Ft. Worth
The NBC affiliate in Ft. Worth, WBAP, was less cooperative. Even though
public statements were made that viewing of Dan Owens and Jim Darnell's
footage was possible, many roadblocks were thrown into the path of
researchers. As mentioned in the section on NBC, Darnell's footage of
the knoll and parking lot is very important. It has remained
unavailable at WBAP.
KTTV -- Dallas
Independent TV station KTTV in Dallas also suppressed, or lost, valuable
evidence of conspiracy. Don Cook's TV footage contained twelve
important sequences. One is a sequence of a man being arrested in front
of the Depository building at about 1:00 p.m. From other evidence it is
possible to determine that the man may be William Sharp, participant in
the assassination. Cook can be seen in a picture taken by Phil Willis
pointing his 16mm TV film camera directly at the man from about ten feet
away.
Willis' photo does not show the man's face. For this reason, Cook's
close-up footage is very important. In 1967 the author interviewed Cook
in Dallas and found that his film had been turned over to the editor at
KTTV. A phone call to the station resulted in a statement being made to
the author that Cook's footage had been lost "on the cutting room floor"
and was not available for viewing. No further efforts have even been
made to open up KTTV's evidence in the assassination.
New Orleans Newspapers
The only two publications in the United States that printed the truth
about the Clay Shaw trial were the New Orleans "Times Picayune" and the
New Orleans "Times Herald."
Between 1963 and 1967 both New Orleans newspapers used AP and UP stories
on most of their coverage of the Kennedy assassination. Suddenly, the
papers found themselves deeply involved in the middle of the sensational
Garrison investigation, and in 1969 they reported on the Shaw trial.
The papers took no editorial position on Jim Garrison, the trial, the
investigation, the assassination, or the guilt or innocence of Shaw
until after the final verdict was delivered by the jury. Then both
papers savagely attacked Garrison on the editorial page. Off the
record, the reporters and others at both papers supported Garrison.
This was reflected in a book published by the two "Herald" reporters,
Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw, called "Plot or Politics."
The management and editors of the newspapers evidently paid more
attention to forces from Washington and New York than they did to New
Orleans citizens or the testimony at the trial.
But the verbatim proceedings at the Shaw trial, as well as all of the
detailed events for the two years that the Federal Government
successfully delayed the trial, were faithfully printed in both the
"Herald" and the "Picayune." While you and I, dear reader, were treated
to a highly biased account for three years concerning events in New
Orleans by "Time" magazine, "Newsweek," "U.S. News," "The New York
Times," NBC, CBS, ABC, UP, AP, etc., the average New Orleans citizen was
well aware that the Justice Department, under both Ramsey Clark and John
Mitchell, was responsible for continually delaying the trail. (You and
I were fed the impression that Garrison delayed the trial.)
Mr. New Orleans citizen, let's call him Joe, knew that Shaw's lawyers
were paid by the CIA. You and I were told that Shaw paid his lawyers a
lot of money and suffered financially because of it.
Joe knew that the FBI was looking for Shaw under his alias, Clay
Bertrand, before lawyer Dean Andrews ever mentioned the name associated
with Lee Harvey Oswald just before he was killed by Jack Ruby. You and
I were told that Andrews fabricated the name Clay Bertrand out of whole
cloth, and no mention was made to us of the FBI's search.
Joe knew that twelve people saw Clay Shaw together with Oswald and David
Ferrie on many occasions, exchanging money on two occasions. You and I
were led to believe by "Time" and "The New York Times" that only three
people saw them together and that the three were not credible witnesses.
Joe knows how Garrison was hounded and framed by the Justice Department
in a fake pinball rap. More importantly, he knows the government did
not want Regis Kennedy, FBI agent, and Pierre Finck, Army doctor at the
JFK autopsy, to testify at the trial.
Finck's testimony, however, was printed in the "Times Picayune" but not
in "Time" magazine. He said that an Army general gave orders during the
autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The unidentified general told Finck
and the other doctors not to probe the President's neck wound. We did
not read about this or hear about it.
The "Times Picayune" record of the Shaw trial was especially accurate.
The "Herald"'s record was reasonably accurate, but because the paper was
printed by 3:00 p.m., the paper missed some of the longer sessions.[9]
WDSU-TV -- New Orleans
As mentioned in the section on NBC, WDSU became directly involved in the
JFK assassination aftermath because of Rick Townley and Walter Sheridan.
Both were under indictment by Garrison for bribing witnesses and
tampering with evidence. Townley, on the staff of WDSU, was close to
the action with Garrison, Shaw, Andrews, Ferrie, Perry Russo, Layton
Martens, Gordon Novel, Sergio Arcacha Smith, David Lewis, David
Llewelyn, Guy Banister, and many other participants in the drama.
According to accounts in the New Orleans papers and repeated in Paris
Flammonde's book "The Kennedy Conspiracy," Townley tried to get Perry
Russo, Garrison's prime witness at the Shaw trial, to change his
testimony at the upcoming trial to make it seem that Garrison had
hypnotized him and then asked leading questions to get Russo to testify
against Shaw.
Townley went to Russo's house twice, threatened to discredit him and
perhaps have him fired from his job, and offered him a chance to work
closely with NBC in their efforts to "destroy Garrison and his case".
Townley told Russo he could get Shaw's lawyer, F. Irving Dymond, to go
easy on him if he would alter his testimony. He assured Russo that his
employer, Equitable Life, had promised the president of NBC that no
retaliation would be taken against Russo if he cooperated with WDSU and
NBC.
Walter Sheridan told Russo that NBC and WDSU could set him up in
California (where Russo always wanted to live) if he helped break the
Garrison probe's back. NBC would pay his expenses there, protect his
job, obtain a lawyer for Russo and guarantee that Garrison would never
extradite him to Louisiana. Sheridan told Russo that NBC had flown
Gordon Novel out of Louisiana to McLean, Virginia (home of the CIA) and
had given Novel (an important witness for Garrison's case) a lie
detector test. Sheridan said NBC would make sure Novel would never be
extradited to Louisiana to testify. (Novel never was extradited.)
Townley also tried to influence Marlene Mancuso, former wife of Gordon
Novel, and an important Shaw trial witness. He told her that she should
cooperate with WDSU and NBC because Garrison was going to be destroyed
and that NBC was not merely willing to discredit the probe: he said
Garrison would go to jail.
On July 10, 1967, Richard Townley was arrested and charged with
attempted bribery and two counts of intimidating two witnesses. He was
also accused of serving as an intermediary to influence cross-examining
trial attorneys that the character and reputation of Perry Russo not be
damaged.
Sheridan was arrested on July 7 on the counts of intimidating witnesses
and attempted bribery. Both posted bond. Townley's statements,
however, did come true. The Federal Government, aided and abetted by
WDSU and NBC, did crucify Garrison.
The author's belief is that this kind of behavior in the face of all the
evidence gathered by the staffs of their own organizations, on the part
of 15 to 24 major news media management groups is highly suspect. It
might be that each major news organization shut up about the Kennedy
assassination because each was afraid of losing face or influence, FCC
licenses, business or advertisers, or Government favors of one kind or
another.
This theory is perhaps best exemplified by a story told by Dorothy
Kilgallen, before she died, to a close friend. Kilgallen was writing
several articles about the JFK assassination for the newspapers who
published her column. She strongly believed there had been a conspiracy
that included Jack Ruby. She interviewed Ruby alone in his jail cell in
Dallas (the only person outside of the police who had this opportunity).
She told her friend shortly afterward that she was planning to "blow the
case wide open" in her column. She said the owner of the New York
newspaper where her column appeared refused to let her print stories in
opposition to the Warren Commission. When the friend asked her why,
Dorothy said, "He's afraid he won't be invited to White House parties
any more".
Of the three possible motives for suppression in the news media, the
influence from the top and from high government places seems the most
probable. When will we, as Americans, learn the truth about influence
in the case of the Kennedy assassination?
Conclusions
The pattern of internal knowledge of conspiracy followed by the complete
suppression of such information is too strong to ignore. Two
conclusions suggest themselves as one reviews the evidence regarding
suppression and secrecy.
The first is that our national news media are controlled on the subject
of the assassination by some very high level group in Washington. The
orders to cease, desist, and suppress came from the top in each case.
To influence the very top level of all fifteen major news media
organizations would have taken a great deal more than money, power, or
threats. In fact, the only kind of appeal which seems likely to have
had a chance of shutting everyone up is a "highly patriotic, national
security," kind of appeal. It was probably just such an argument that
worked with the Warren Commission. Judging by the fact that Lyndon B.
Johnson told Walter Cronkite there was a conspiracy and then
successfully persuaded CBS to edit this out of his remarks "on grounds
of national security," this kind of an appeal obviously does work.
The second possibility, rather remote from a probability standpoint,
should nevertheless be considered. It is that all 15 to 24 news
organizations reached a point of exasperation and disbelief in 1968-
1969. It's possible the top managers of these 24 organizations reached
this exasperation point independent of one another. Within a two to
three-year period, culminating in the Shaw trial and discrediting of Jim
Garrison, every one of these managers might finally have said, "Stop,
cease, desist, lock the files, you're fired, shut up, I don't want to
hear another word about it."
1976
How, one may ask, could all of this have happened in the world's
greatest democracy? What has become of the principles of the Founding
Fathers, Horace Greeley, Will Rogers and others, in which the "free"
press is supposedly our best protection from the misuse of governmental
power. Didn't things change with Watergate? What about the "New York
Times" and the "Pentagon Papers," the "Washington Post," Bernstein and
Woodward, Watergate, NBC's white paper on Vietnam, Sy Hersh and the CIA
stories in the "New York Times"?
The actions taking place in November-December, 1975 and on into 1976,
proved the media were still influenced and controlled by the same forces
that controlled the media in 1968 and 1969. Some of the names of the
players were different: Ford for Nixon, Colby for Helms, Kelley for J.
Edgar Hoover. But the forces were the same. The chairmen of the boards
and presidents of NBC, CBS, ABC, Time, Inc., "Newsweek"-"Washington
Post," "Los Angeles Times," "Chicago Tribune," UPI, AP, and the rest,
were still very much controlled and influenced by the White House and
the Secret Team. Some of the influence was by infiltration, as Fletcher
Prouty so aptly demonstrated.[10]
The Secret Team members were to be found everywhere at or near the top.
Other influence came from the Ford administration through direct or
indirect pressure. The FCC, the IRS, the Department of Commerce, the
military and other government agencies had some control over the media
or the personal lives of the top managers. (It must be remembered that
Gerald Ford was and is one of the cover-up conspirators in the JFK
case.)
What is the Evidence?
What is the evidence for this? One measures the influence by results.
In an era when all who have really examined the basic evidence know
there were conspiracies in the JFK and RFK assassinations, we still find
the 15 organizations concluding there were lone, demented gunmen in the
two cases.
For example, CBS broadcast a two-part special on November 25 and 26,
1975, once again reinforcing their stand that Oswald acted alone.
Except for the substitution of Dan Rather as chief narrator in place of
Walter Cronkite, the cast was the same as in the 1967 four-part series.
Leslie Midgely was the producer, Bernie Birnbaum, the associate
producer, and Jane Bartels, Birnbaum's girl-Friday. Eric Sevareid and
Eddie Barker were missing. So was Bob Richter, another 1967 associate
producer who had discovered the truth about the conspiracy and the way
CBS handled it. (He now manages his own film-making company, Richter-
McBride, in New York.) Richter's opinion about the 1967 CBS four-part
special, as expressed in an interview with Jerry Policoff published in
"New Times" magazine in October 1975,[11] barred him from becoming a
consultant to Midgely on the November 25 and 26 programs.
Hard Evidence Never Mentioned
Time, Inc., in their November 17, 1975 issue supported the lone assassin
myth as they have since 1964.[12] Since "Life" was no longer in
existence, Time management used "Time" and "People" magazines to further
the causes of the White House and the CIA in the cover-up of the cover-
ups. The November 3, 1975 issue[13] of "People" magazine hand-picked a
group of "researchers" and portrayed them as obvious maniacs who
believed in and furthered the conspiracy theories being bandied about.
One of the favorite tricks of the media throughout the years has been to
couple the words "conspiracy" and "theory" together; never once did the
major media mention any of the hard evidence pointing to conspiracy in
any of the four major cases. The "Time" policy and article, according
to Jerry Policoff, was commanded from the very top, above Hedley
Donovan's level.[14]
The fine hand of David Belin can be traced in the "Time" article. All
of the 1964 arguments against conspiracy were aired once again, as
though they were brand new.
The Forces of Good vs. the Forces of Evil:
A Life and Death Struggle
David Belin: Belin shows up in several places. He constructed a new
CIA-White House base on behalf of his superiors by personally writing
most of Chapter 19 of the Rockefeller Report on the CIA and the FBI.
That material was used by Belin and others to try and shore up the
Warren Commission defenses.
The reader may ask, "Why did Belin appear on `Face the Nation' on
November 23, 1975 and get himself on the front page of the `New York
Times' on the same day by proposing the reopening of the JFK case?"[15]
The answer lies in Belin's own explanation. He wants America to see
that a new investigation will confirm the findings of the Warren
Commission, thereby strengthening the country's faith in its government.
Just how did Belin manage to get on "Face the Nation" and on the first
page of the "New York Times?" To answer that you must analyze the life
and death struggle that is going on between the forces of evil who want
to continue the cover-ups, and the forces of good who want to expose the
truth. Senators Richard Schweiker and Gary Hart and the Church
Committee's subcommittee looking into the JFK assassination were not the
push-overs that Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg and others once were. There
were also Henry B. Gonzalez and Thomas Downing and their new resolutions
in the House, not to mention Don Edwards' subcommittee and Bella Abzug's
subcommittee.
The evil forces needed to muster the strongest counterattack possible at
this stage. For them it was a matter of life and death. So they
rounded up David Belin, Joseph Ball, Wesley Liebeler, John J. McCloy,
Dr. John Lattimer, the old Ramsey Clark panel of doctors who secretly
went into the Archives in 1968, and some of the coterie of writers who
were in their camp in the 1960's.
"I've Seen No New Evidence"
Any doubts about Belin's recruitment by Ford and the White House
disappeared with Gerald Ford's press conference on Wednesday, November
26, 1975. A reporter asked Ford whether he would support reopening the
JFK investigation.[16] He said, "I, of course, served on the Warren
Commission. And I know a good deal about the hearings and the committee
report, obviously. There are some new developments--not evidence--but
new developments that, according to one of our best staff members (David
Belin), who's kept up to date on it more than I, that he thinks just to
lay those charges (of conspiracy) aside that a new investigation ought
to be undertaken. He, at the same time, said that no new evidence has
come up. If those particular developments could be fully investigated
without reopening the whole matter that took us 10 months to conclude, I
think some responsible group or organization ought to do so. But not to
reopen all of the other aspects because I think they were thoroughly
covered by the Warren Commission."
Thus Ford, in one of his own inimitable paragraphs, tried to give the
impression that he was following the lead of David Belin--rather than
the other way around--in the continued cover-up efforts. Earl Warren
was always saying, "I've seen no new evidence." Ford, Belin and the
rest were forced to echo this refrain, as though all of the things that
have been learned since 1964 about the real assassins of John Kennedy
and their planners and backers, were false rumors or stories and
theories created out of whole cloth by the researchers and later by
Congress.[17]
Pure Coincidence?
One CIA-White House lackey is James Phelan, formerly a freelance writer
for the old "Saturday Evening Post." Phelan was brought out of
mothballs to do a pro-Warren Commission piece in the "New York Times"
Sunday magazine section.[18] By pure coincidence, it happened to appear
on the same day that Belin's arranged interview was found on page one.
The "Times" is one of the worst, if not the worst, news media
organization on the evil side of the battle.
An article in the July 1971 issue of "Computers and Automation"[19]
shows that the CIA control of the "Times" had for years been directed
through Harding Bancroft, the Secret Team member there. He controlled
all stories and editorial positions on domestic assassinations. He
undoubtedly arranged for both stories to appear on the same day.[20]
CBS. Cover-Up Broadcasting System
The Belin appearance on the CBS show, "Face the Nation", was no doubt
timed to coincide with the first two parts of the new CBS whitewash
series. (The new name for CBS is "Cover-Up Broadcasting System".) The
men at the top made the decisions in 1967 and 1975 to support the Warren
Commission, and Leslie Midgeley carried them out. In 1967 the entire
program format was changed by top management from pro-conspiracy to pro-
Warren Commission in the last ten days before the first show went on the
air.[21] By 1975 there wasn't any doubt about the conclusions.
Midgeley and Co. started out with the lone assassin thesis and, as the
Warren Commission did, merely sought witnesses, experts and explanations
that would back it up, while they totally ignored everything else.
The CIA's man at CBS who controlled this policy is not known. Personal
experiences and contacts within the organization by the author have led
to the conclusion that it is someone below the level of William C. Paley
and above the level of Midgeley. That leaves Richard Salant and one or
two other possibilities. Salant is known to have had intelligence
connections through the decades since World War II.
Too Perfect Timing
CBS and the "New York Times" are sometimes simultaneously orchestrated
by the evil forces. One example was the CBS show preview by the "Times"
on November 24 (the show was scheduled to appear on November 25 and
26).[22] The article, written by John J. O'Connor, was a reverse-
psychology strategy by the top managements of both organizations and was
used to reinforce their pro-Warren Commission policies. To quote
O'Connor, "In bringing some facts to bear on the feverish speculation,
CBS News is less sensational but more telling." This was in reference
to David Susskind and Geraldo Rivera on Channel 5 in New York, and ABC,
who the "Times" believed provided no facts in disputing the lone
assassin conclusion.
How did O'Connor and the "New York Times" take a look at the CBS shows
*two days in advance* while other publications and reviewers had to wait
and watch it with the rest of us? There goes the orchestration again.
"Newsweek" Editorial Position:
Schweiker, Hart and Gonzalez Misled by Kooks
The "Washington Post"-"Newsweek" situation is a little more mystifying.
It is difficult to believe that Katherine Graham, owner of both
publications, is a Secret Team member. The "Newsweek" story on the JFK
assassination, published in the issue of April 28, 1975[23] was not as
blatantly pro-Warren Commission as the "Time" article. Yet it left the
impression with the readers of "Newsweek" that editorial position
regarded the researchers as kooks who misled or talked Senator Schweiker
and Representatives Gonzalez and Downing into the wrong attitudes.
"Oswald did fire the shots" is the "Newsweek" message. Individuals at
"Newsweek" like Evert Clark did not really believe this. So where did
the pressure come from? Mrs. Graham herself, or Benjamin Bradlee at the
"Post," or someone else near the top of "Newsweek?" With reporters like
Bernstein and Woodward, and Haynes Johnson who later moved into
management, it is strange that the "Post" supported the Warren
Commission. Yet that has been the "Post"'s editorial stance since 1964.
It remains adamant in its continuing contention that lone madmen
assassinated our three leaders and attempted to assassinate Wallace.
Eliminate Areas of Doubt
Researcher Jim Blickenstaff, disturbed by a "Newsweek" article in April
of 1975, wrote to the editors. Madeline Edmundson replied for them.
"It was certainly not our aim to discredit those who doubt the
conclusions of the Warren Commission or to express opposition to a
reopening of the investigation of John F. Kennedy's assassination."
Yet, "Newsweek" did exactly that and, in effect, took the same editorial
position it had taken in May, 1967, when CIA lackey Hugh Aynesworth was
doing their dirty work. (Aynesworth later did the CIA's dirty work and
supported the Warren Commission for the "Dallas Times Herald.") The new
position in favor of reopening the investigation was the one taken by
Belin. It was expressed best by Harrison Salisbury, the man at the "New
York Times" who knew better. Salisbury was quoted in "Newsweek" saying,
"A new investigation is needed to answer questions of major importance.
We will go over all the areas of doubt and hope to eliminate them."
UPI: Accessory After the Fact in the JFK Conspiracy Cover-Up
AP and UPI have not repeated their 1967-1968 performances recently in
which they sent out the longest stories ever broadcast over their news
service wires. They were so long that they were divided into
installments. The stories backed up the Warren Commission and attacked
the researchers, especially Jim Garrison. UPI, of course, became an
accessory after the fact in the JFK conspiracy cover-up by suppressing
the original 8mm color films by Marie Muchmore and Orville Nix. It went
even further by employing Itek Corporation to prove there was no one on
the grassy knoll.
In July of 1975 a UPI alumnus, Maurice Schonfeld, published an article
in "Columbia Journalism Review"[24] that subtly contended one of the
riflemen on the knoll as seen in the original Nix film was either an
illusion or a man without a rifle.
"Expert" Opinions
Itek: Itek is still at work helping out their friendly employers, the
U.S. government and the CIA. Itek analyzed the Zapruder film and the
Hughes film on the CBS program aired in November of 1975, giving its
"expert" opinion that all shots fired in Dealey Plaza came from the
sixth floor window of the TSBD Building.
Maurice Schonfeld, perhaps unwittingly, did a favor for researchers in
his "Columbia Journalism Review" article that revealed that two
officials of Itek, Howard Sprague and Franklin T. Lindsay, were CIA
Secret Team members. So when Ford, Belin and Salant or whoever at CBS
needed help, all they had to do was call upon good old Itek and Howard
Sprague. (Frank Lindsay has since departed.)
AP: Faithful to the White House and CIA
Associated Press has been editorially silent since 1969. They have
faithfully broadcast all of the White House-CIA cover or planted stories
without comment.
Keeping the Lid On
"Los Angeles Times:" "The Los Angeles Times," controlled by Norman
Chandler who was strongly influenced by the Ford administration, the CIA
and Evelle Younger (the Attorney General of California), produced a
complete cover-up effort in the Robert Kennedy assassination conspiracy.
Younger, of course, was D.A. in Los Angeles County when RFK was killed.
He and Ed Davis, L.A. Police Chief, teamed up with Joseph Busch,
assistant D.A., to cover up the conspiracy evidence. The "Times" for a
short, unguarded period allowed reporter Dave Smith to publish the truth
about the assassination. This stopped in 1974, after Al Lowenstein
stirred Vincent Bugliosi, Baxter Ward, Thomas Bradley, and finally
Governor Pat Brown, Jr. to take a new interest in the case.
Younger influenced Chandler to shut off the flow of information through
the "Los Angeles Times." Chandler, who contributed to the Nixon
campaign, undoubtedly was strong-armed by both Nixon and Ford (or the
CIA) to support the position of the Los Angeles police and the D.A.'s
office. Ronald Reagan and his immediate deputy at the time also helped
sway Chandler and others in California to keep the lid on.
Zapruder Film Broadcast on Two Occasions
The American Broadcasting Corporation was the first of the television
networks to seemingly break away from CIA-White House control. In the
spring of 1975, after Robert Groden, Dick Gregory, Ralph Schoenman and
Jerry Policoff decided to release and publicize a clear, enlarged, stop-
action color copy of the Zapruder film, the ABC show hosted by Geraldo
Rivera, "Good Night, America," showed the film on two occasions. Rivera
might have made this move against the wishes of top ABC management.
Rumor had it during the summer months that he was in hot water with high
level people. All doubts about ABC's position disappeared when they
broadcast an assassination special during the week of November 17, 1975
that supported the lone assassin theory.
"Conspiracy Fever"
"Commentary:" One surprising newcomer to the cover-up conspiracy group
is "Commentary." The liberal, open-minded, non-government magazine
"Commentary" broke their pattern in the October 1975 issue[25] when it
published an article by Dr. Jacob Cohen from Brandeis University which
attacked the researchers as paranoid conspiratorialists. Cohen has been
writing these defenses for the Warren Commission for over ten years.
This article was republished in several other places in November, 1975,
as part of the orchestrated campaign by the CIA-White House.
A Straight News Story
"U.S. News and World Report:" "U.S. News" may be one of the few media
publications to change positions. On September 15, 1975 they ran a
story entitled, "Behind the Move to Reopen the JFK Case". It was a
straight news story about Senator Schweiker's efforts and list of
uncovered evidence raising new questions. The article closed with:
"Numerous Americans who long have doubted the Warren Commission
conclusions will be watching what the Senate does with his (Schweiker's)
idea." That is as close as any of the fifteen organizations came to
saying they believe the Warren Commission was wrong.
A Breath of Fresh Air
"Saturday Evening Post:" Like a breath of fresh air from the heartland
of America in Indianapolis, Indiana, the revived "Saturday Evening Post"
(Bobbs Merrill subsidiary) took an editorial stance. The "Post" not
only published several strong articles on the assassinations but also
called for reopening all of the cases, supported the Gonzalez-Downing
resolutions, and offered a sizable reward for information leading to
conviction of the murderers of John F. Kennedy.[26] Thus the "Post"
joined the ranks of the "National Enquirer," "National Tattler,"
"National Insider," "Argosy," "Penthouse," "Gallery," "Genesis" and
other publications of this type, plus nearly all the "underground
newspapers" in calling for new investigations.
CIA Operatives Are Serving as Journalists
For News Organizations Abroad
"Variety:" On November 12, 1975, "Variety" published an article on the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees' suspicions about relationships
between the CIA and broadcasting organizations.[27] "Variety" said the
committees were probing the CIA's influence on the media organizations,
particularly management connections, and commented, "A central issue in
the investigations is reports of financial dealings with the CIA and
media firms with extensive overseas staffs."
William Colby admitted that CIA operatives were currently serving as
journalists for news organizations abroad, and that "detailmen" were
assigned abroad to news organizations, often without the knowledge of
management. Ronald Dellums, California representative asked Colby in an
open session of a House hearing if the CIA had ever asked a network to
kill a news story. Colby would not answer specifics in open session, so
the panel went immediately behind closed doors to grill him for several
hours.
Conclusions
It is to be hoped that all committees in the House and Senate will
investigate the Secret Team members in the 15 media organizations and
their influence and control over editorial policies on domestic
assassination conspiracies. It is also to be hoped that the committees
will investigate the role of then-president Gerald Ford and his working
relationship to various CIA people in the original cover-up of the John
F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy. Certainly, David Belin's
relationship to the CIA and to Ford in the media cover-up campaign needs
be investigated.
Fletcher Prouty claimed in his November, 1975 article in "Gallery
Magazine," "The Fourth Force,"[28] that Belin is a CIA operative.
Prouty says, "The Rockefeller Commission did not look into this (the
Fourth Force-CIA) because it had been penetrated on behalf of the CIA by
David Belin, its chief counsel and former counsel of the Warren
Commission. In fact, Belin still reports to the CIA." If this is
indeed true, it explains every move Belin has made since 1964 and it
also explains the mysterious way he appeared and reappeared on the front
pages and editorial pages of various major newspapers, on choice
television shows, and on the Rockefeller Commission.
If the Congress leaves the media-government-CIA link untouched--more
serious than any of the other problems raised by the assassination
conspiracies and their cover-ups--the United States might, in fact, be
headed for the real 1984.
Postscript
On April 27, 1976 "The New York Times" published a story on the Senate
Intelligence Committee revelation that the CIA would be keeping twenty-
five journalist agents within the news media.[29] The Committee
disclosed that George Bush planned to keep these people in the media
positions that they had occupied for a long time.
The significant point about the story was a statement by a Committee
staff member that many of the individuals were in executive positions at
American news organizations. Bush had directed that the CIA stop hiring
correspondents "accredited" by American publications and other news
organizations. The "Times" recognized that the pivotal word in Bush's
directive was "accredited." "Executives who do not work as
correspondents are apparently not covered by Mr. Bush's directive, nor
are freelance writers who are not affiliated with a specific employer."
The article also said that in most cases the media organization was not
aware of the individual's CIA connection.
This was yet the best confirmation that the CIA had its Secret Team
members planted at the top of the media. Only one executive is required
at the top of a media organization to control it when needed. Since the
CIA had twenty-five executives planted, that figure is more than enough
to control the fifteen media organizations mentioned in this chapter.
Who are they? The answer can be supplied by watching where the
decisions come from to halt or change the news about domestic political
assassinations.
The indications from the analysis in this chapter are that the following
media executives are among the twenty-five retained by the CIA: Harding
Bancroft, Jr. ("New York Times"); Richard Salant (CBS); George Love
(Time, Inc./"Life"); Walter Sheridan (NBC); Lewis Powell, lawyer (ABC);
and Benjamin Bradlee ("Washington Post").
____________________
[1] "Accessories After the Fact" is the title of a book by Sylvia
Meagher, published by Bobbs Merrill in 1967, accusing the Warren
Commission and the various government agencies of covering up the
crime of the century. This book accuses the national news media of
the same crimes.
[2] Black Star is a New York based organization made up of free-lance
photographers, called stringers, in every major city. They do
contract work for news media with Black Star acting as contracting
agent.
[3] Samuel Thurston, "The Central Intelligence Agency and `The New York
Times,'" "Computers and Automation," July, 1971.
[4] CBS-TV Special on the Assassination of John Kennedy -- June 25, 26,
27 and 28, 1972.
[5] "Computers and Automation," July, 1971
[6] For a more detailed analysis of the "Times"' culpability and
selective bias in reporting the facts of the assassination, see
Jerry Policoff's October 1972 article in "The Realist:" "How All
the News About Political Assassinations In the United States Has
Not Been Fit to Print in `The New York Times.'"
[7] A detailed review of NBC's performance and Walter Sheridan's and
Richard Townley's involvement is given in "The Kennedy Conspiracy"
by Paris Flammonde.
[8] Those interested in more detail are referred to the map in the May
1970 issue of "Computers and Automation" on the JFK assassination.
The UPI definition of "the grassy knoll" was the area bounded by
the picket fence, the stone wall, the top of the steps on the
south, and the cupola.
[9] For a comparison of New Orleans newspapers and all other media
coverage of the Shaw trial, see the author's unpublished book "The
Trial of Clay Shaw -- The Truth and the Fiction."
[10] Prouty, L. Fletcher, "The Secret Team," Prentice Hall, 1973.
[11] Policoff, Jerry, "The Media and the Murder of John Kennedy", "New
Times," October, 1975.
[12] "Who Killed JFK? Just One Assassin," "Time" magazine, November 24,
1975.
[13] "Up Front -- Did One Man With One Gun Kill John F, Kennedy? Eight
Skeptics Who Say No," "People," November 3, 1975.
[14] Author's discussion with Jerry Policoff, November 29, 1975.
[15] "Warren Panel Aide Calls for 2nd Inquiry Into Kennedy Killing",
"New York Times," November 23, 1975, p. 1.
[16] Transcript of Gerald Ford Press Conference "New York Times,"
November 27, 1975.
[17] For a summary of the evidence and scenario about what it shows the
reader is referred to two articles in "People and the Pursuit of
Truth:" "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy the
Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Plans and the
Cover-Up," May 1975, and "Who Killed JFK?," October, 1975. Both by
the author.
[18] Phelan, James R., "The Assassination," "New York Times Magazine
Section," November 23, 1975.
[19] Thurston, Samuel F. (psuedonym for Richard E. Sprague), "The
Central Intelligence Agency and `The New York Times'" "Computers
and Automation," July, 1971.
[20] Bancroft retired in early 1976. A successor has undoubtedly been
groomed by the CIA. However, Bancroft still has a strong influence
at the "Times" on the subject of assassinations.
[21] Based on a discussion among the author, Dan Rather, and Robert
Richter at CBS in Washington, D.C., approximately ten days before
the first Cronkite-CBS section of the 1967 four-part series on the
JFK assassination.
[22] O'Conner, John J., "TV: CBS News is Presenting Two Hour-Long
Programs on the Assassination of President Kennedy", "New York
Times," November 24, 1975.
[23] "Dallas: New Questions and Answers," "Newsweek," April 28, 1975.
[24] Schonfeld, Maurice W., "The Shadow of a Gunman," "Columbia
Journalism Review," July-August, 1975.
[25] Cohen, John, "Conspiracy Fever," "Commentary," October, 1975.
[26] "Saturday Evening Post," September, October, November and December,
1975 issues.
[27] "D.C. Digs Deep Into TV News Ties With CIA," "Variety," November
12, 1975.
[28] Prouty, L. Fletcher, "The Fourth Force," "Gallery," November, 1975.
[29] "CIA Will Keep More Than 25 Journalist-Agents," "New York Times,"
April 27, 1976, p. 26.