NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/conspira/13594

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From: [e-mail] (Steve Crocker)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: CIA Media Influence - the JFK Case
Date: 1 Jan 1993 04:12:05 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
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NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


After reading the debate in the Cuban invasion thread over the extent
of CIA influence in the mainstream media, I decided to repost this excerpt
from FOIA documents indicating the strategy followed by the CIA to influence
the media in the case of the JFK investigation
-Steve

<begin reposted document>
Note - This material was originally posted to usenet in two parts by John
DiNardo. In consolidating them I have removed the secons usenet header and
the first set of John's closing remarks

From: [e-mail] (John DiNardo)
>Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.activism,talk.politics.misc,misc.headlines,soc.rights.human,soc.culture.usa,alt.individualism,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.censorship
Subject: Part I, CIA Incriminates Itself By Assassinating JFK Conspiracy Theory
Date: Wed Mar 18 17:45:43 1992

     Herein are excerpts from a compilation of documents published
     under the Freedom of Information Act in the book:

            "Documents", by Christy Macy and Susan Kaplan,
               compiled under the sponsorship of the
                 Center for National Security Studies, and
                    published by Penguin Books, 1980

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
.... those who publicly cast doubt on the integrity of members of
the Warren Commission and questioned the veracity of its report
on President Kennedy's assassination were looked upon harshly by
the intelligence community.

In 1966, when over forty percent of the American people expressed
reservations about the Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey
Oswald was the sole assassin, the C.I.A. decided to launch a
WORLDWIDE campaign to discredit the Commission's critics. The
following document, suggesting ways of effectively stifling
accusations of official cover-up and Government conspiracy once
and for all, was sent to C.I.A. stations throughout the world.


                                                Doc. 23a

________________________________________PROCESSING ACTION________
DISPATCH            CLASSIFICATION
________________________________________MARKED FOR INDEXING______

Chiefs, Certain Stations and Bases   X  NO INDEXING REQUIRED_____

________Document Number 1035-960________ONLY QUALIFIED DECK
________________________________________CAN JUDGE INDEXING________

________for FOIA Review on SEP 1976_____MICROFILM_________________
SUBJECT
________Countering Criticism of the Warren Report_________________
ACTION REQUIRED   .   REFERENCES

                                 THIS WAS PULLED TOGETHER BY
                 FOR OSWALD      . . .  IN CLOSE CONJUNCTION
                 FILE! 2         WITH . . . WE FURNISHED MOST
PSYCH            COPIES          OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL,
                                 PROPOSED MANY OF THE THEMES,
                                 AND PROVIDED GENERAL "EXPERTISE"
                                 ON THE CASE. THE SPECTATOR
                                 ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN
                                 . . . 23 JAN 1967

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

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S.
Government, including our organization. The members of the Warren
Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience,
and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and
their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country.
Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to
impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole
leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an
increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as
the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some
way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness
affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole
reputation of the American Government. Our organization itself is
directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information
to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown
suspicion on our organization, for example, by falsely alleging
that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is
to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of
the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of
such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied
in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

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

__________________________CS COPY________________________________
DISPATCH SYMBOL AND NUMBER         DATE

9 attachments h/w_________________________4/1/67_________________
                CLASSIFICATION     HQS FILE NUMBER
1-          Satts                   DESTROY WHEN NO LONGER
8-Unclassified                      NEEDED
_________________________________________________________________


                                                        Doc. 23b
_________________________________________________________________
a. To discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly
elite contacts, especially politicians and editors, pointing out
that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as
humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without
serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only
plays into the hands of the opposition.
                      (to be continueed)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                        (continuation)
Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be
deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge [politicians
and editors] to use their influence to discourage unfounded and
irresponsible speculation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    To those who want to support a sincere investigation of the
    assassination of President Kennedy, I would suggest that we
    need to couple the power of citizen unity with the most powerful
    societal instrument that we, as a nation, have at our disposal.
    And that is the law under the Constitution of the United States.

    A highly dedicated public interest legal action institute
    which might accept the challenge, if prevailed upon by enough
    supportive citizens, is the Christic Institute. Please contact

                      Daniel Sheehan, Lead Attorney
                      The Christic Institute
                      1324 North Capitol St., N.W.
                      Washington, D.C. 20002

    and encourage him to join with you and a vast number of Americans
    who anxiously desire that the real assassins of President Kennedy
    be found, convicted and sentenced, including deceased assassins who,
    for the sake of upholding principles of justice, ought to be tried
    and convicted in absentia.

John DiNardo
~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~
If we seriously listen to this "God within us" ["conscience",
if you will], we usually find ourselves being urged to take
the path of more effort rather than less. Each and every one
of us, more or less frequently, will hold back from this work.
Like every one of our ancestors before us, we are all lazy.
So original sin does exist; it is our laziness.

                              M. Scott Peck
                         THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED
<end reposted material>
-Steve Crocker