NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/6386

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From: [e-mail] (John A Dinardo)
Subject: Part I, PACIFICA RADIO Investigates the Murder of President Kennedy
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Keywords: researchers' revelations about the assassination of President Kennedy
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        I made the following transcript from a tape recording
        of a broadcast by Pacifica Radio station
               WBAI-FM (99.5)
               505 Eighth Ave., 19th Fl.
               New York, NY 10018       [phone]

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
GARY NULL:
There is criticism on the part of the media to opening up the
John F. Kennedy assassination to a new investigation. However,
there are individuals who are willing to challenge this stance.
They feel that there are more than enough reasons to open up
the Warren Commission findings and to take another look;
even to convene another impartial group of researchers and
investigators who have subpoena power; even a special prosecutor,
if necessary, to delve into this issue without the FBI and the
CIA being the ones who are primarily responsible for giving the
information, as some doubt has been raised concerning their
objectivity in the original Warren Commission hearings and
research-gathering.

Our first guest on today's program is Harold Weisberg, the
House Subcommitee on Assassinations investigator, the author
of a book on Lee Harvey Oswald and the post-mortem, the whitewash
and the frame-up. He has also written a book on the assassination
of Martin Luther King. Welcome to our program, Mr. Weisberg.
I would like you to give us your professional assessment of the
House Select Committee on Assassinations -- since you were a
primary investigator there -- on their findings, on the Warren
Commission, and on ....

HAROLD WEISBERG:
I had no connection with the House Committee. I was the source
for most of the stories that appeared that were critical of them.
It was a synthetic duplication of the Warren Commission. It began
with the intent (now, I'm not talking about each individual
member. I'm talking about the staff who did it; especially
Blakey, the general counsel and chief-of-staff) .... It began
with the intent of putting down all the critics. Each hearing
-- each public hearing -- began with what he called "the
narration", and he picked out the critics whose work he was
going to address, and then the hearing was dedicated to debunking
them and proving them wrong. And I'm happy to say that there's
only one critic he managed to avoid; and that's me. He wasn't
going to pick a fight with me.

All of their [the Committee's] work was faulted in varying
degrees of ways, but they NEVER investigated the crime itself.
In that, they did exactly what the FBI did, and exactly what
the Warren Commission did. They did NOT -- any one of them --
investigate the crime itself.

Now, I think you should know that, unlike the other books,
there are no theories in my book. I'm a former investigative
reporter, a Senate investigator, an intelligence analyst; and
that's not my bag. And I don't think that that's what the people
of the country need for the democratic system to work. They're
factual. Now, I'm going to quote, accurately from memory, a
record I got through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Perhaps it would help your audience to understand more about
where I'm coming from to say that I filed about a dozen Freedom
of Information Act lawsuits against the Government. Most of them
are on the Kennedy assassination. And most of the records I got
were from the FBI. In all, I have about a third of a million
pages of records. These are the same ones that Oliver Stone has
been promoting for himself in his movie by saying that they're
suppressed.

Now, from the Department of Justice and from the FBI I got a
record of a memorandum. Nicholas Katzenabach -- who was then
the Deputy Attorney-General of the United States and acting
Attorney-General as of the time in question, because Bobby
Kennedy was not there because of the crime and the tragedy.
He [Katzenbach] wrote Lyndon Johnson, through his [Johnson's]
channel, Bill Moyers, recommending to Lyndon Johnson that they
had to convince the country that Oswald was alone, that Oswald
was the assassin, that he had no confederates who were still
at-large, and that the evidence was such that he would be
convicted in trial. The typed copy is dated early Monday morning
the first working day after the assassination, November 25, 1963.
I also happen to have gotten Katzenbach's handwritten copy, which
he wrote when he had no typist available on Sunday. And from the
FBI I got a record which said that Katzenbach had discussed it
with [FBI Director] Hoover on Sunday, as soon as Oswald was killed.

So as soon as the Government knew that there would be no trial of
Lee Harvey Oswald, they closed the books, the crime was solved, and
that was it. So you see, when the crime itself was never
investigated, there are no leads for other people to follow. And I
address this so that your audience can understand that those
people, who develop theories and advance them as solutions, do it
without a factual basis. I don't know of any theory that is
factually supportable by the known evidence. And now I'm talking
about the official investigative reports of the FBI and things
like that which do establish some fact.

GARY NULL:
Okay, we thank you very much, Mr. Weisberg, for sharing your
views and for giving us this insight on this important piece of
critical information. I appreciate your being on with us today.
Let's go now to another guest who is standing by, who has a
different point of view, and who has additional information.
I would like to invite Jim Marrs [author of CROSSFIRE] onto our
program again. Welcome to our program, Jim.

I'd like to pick up where we left off yesterday. For those of you
who were not here yesterday and who didn't hear the program, we did
a careful assessment, going step-by-step through the events that
led up to the actual shooting, showing that the American Public
has never been made aware of the fact that earlier in the day, in
Fort Worth, there was also a motorcade for President Kennedy, but
that motorcade was substantially different. It was VERY very
heavily guarded, on proper protocol, by the Secret Service. And the
police were maintained, meaning that sharpshooters were stationed on
rooftops, no window was allowed to be opened, there was adequate
protection. But all of that was suspended at Dealey Plaza and for
the trip through Dallas. WHY?  WHO was responsible?  Who caused
the rescinding of these orders? Those are questions that have to
be thoroughly analyzed.

I would like just a brief summary of some of the points from
yesterday -- an overview of some of the discrepancies between
what we have been led to believe and what actually occurred.
Then I would like to go into the area that our previous guest,
Mr. Harold Weisberg has suggested  -- that there is NO evidence
to support any of the assassination theories. I would like you to
give us YOUR information, your belief, and whatever documentation
you have that could, in any way, directly or indirectly, tie in
any of a number of proposed agendas such as the renegade CIA
agents, the knowledge that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover could
have known or may have known in advance that the assassination
was imminent, certain right-wing extremists, certain members of
the military, and also members of Organized Crime, and some
anti-Castro Cubans.

Now, all of these have been alleged -- depending upon the theorist
-- to have participated. But you have some unique insights and
and I would like you to share with us some of those insights at
this time.
                        (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
    Transcribed by John DiNardo