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Article: 519 of sgi.talk.ratical
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: How the NYT Dissembles Re: Political Assassinations In The U.S.
Keywords: All The News Re: US Political Assassinations That ISN'T Fit To Print
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1992 14:38:44 GMT
Lines: 1756
Although this article by Jerry Policoff is almost 20 years old, its
meticulous research, analysis, and documentation--of the underhanded yet
pervasive way in which the number 1 newspaper of record for the United
States has consistently practiced deceptive reporting regarding the 3
most critical political assassinations of the 1960s--recommends it highly
to readers nearly two decades after its original publication.
--ratitor
The political assassinations of the '60s seem to have given rise
to a most peculiar policy at "The New York Times," a policy that
maintains that the "official" line is the *only* line. In the
process the "Times" has subjected its readers to distortion,
misrepresentation, and outright deception. . . .
Only "The New York Times" can answer why they have for nine years
maintained a consistent policy of literary assassination of
literature and deliberate management of news suggesting that three
of the greatest crimes of the 20th century may, despite "official"
findings to the contrary, be yet unsolved.
But the unassailable fact is that in the process they have acted
as little less than an unofficial propaganda arm of the Government
which has maintained so staunchly--and in the face of all evidence
to the contrary, great and trivial--that assassinations in the
United States are inevitably the work of lone demented madmen.
Justice Hugo Black in his concurring opinion in the Supreme Court
decision favoring "The New York Times" in the case of the Pentagon
Papers said, "Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively
expose deception in government. And paramount among the
responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of
the Government from deceiving the people. . . ."
Far from preventing deception in the case of political
assassinations, the "Times" has practiced it, and in the process
defrauded its readers and violated every ethic of professional and
objective journalism.
The following appeared in the October 1972 (# 94) issue of "The Realist:"
_____________________________________________________________________________
How All the News About Political Assassinations in the United States
Has Not Been Fit to Print in "The New York Times"
by Jerry Policoff
Since the publication of the Pentagon Papers, "The New York
Times," America's most prestigious newspaper, has been the recipient
of what may be an unparalleled stream of tributes and awards for its
dedication to the principles of a free press and the people's right
to know.
Unfortunately the Pentagon Papers represent something of a
departure--if that is, in fact, what they are--for the paper whose
image of its role was described by Gay Talese in his critically
acclaimed biography of the "Times," "The Kingdom and the Power," as
the "responsible spokesman for the system."[1] For the "Times"
often places secondary importance upon its responsibility to inform
the public when that responsibility conflicts with its own concept
of that ominous and all-encompassing enigma known as "the national
security."
The example of the Bay of Pigs is well known. The "Times" had
deduced by evaluating various *published* accounts that a United
States trained and financed group of Cuban exiles was about to
invade Cuba. The story was to be a major exclusive featured on the
front page. Instead the management of the "Times" decided to play
down the story and strip it of its revelations. It appeared inside
the paper under the deliberately misleading subhead, "Quick Action
Opposed."[2] Thus a major diplomatic and strategic blunder which
might otherwise have been averted was not.
In 1966 when Dean Rusk protested to the "Times" that an impending
news series on the CIA was not in the national interest, the "Times"
responded by sending the completed series to John McCone, former
head of the CIA, for editing. Turner Catledge, then Managing
Editor, wrote a placating memo to his concerned boss, Arthur Ochs
Sulzberger, the Publisher of the "Times." "I don't know of any
other series in my time," wrote Catledge, "which has been prepared
with greater care and with such remarkable attention to the views of
the agency involved as this one."[3]
There is little wonder that Talese described the relationship
between the highest levels of the U.S. Government and "The New York
Times" as "a hard alliance" which, in any large showdown, "would
undoubtedly close ranks and stand together."[4]
The 1960s represented a dark decade for many millions of
Americans who saw their hopes and aspirations for the future dashed
amid the blaze of guns that struck down President John F. Kennedy,
the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
In all three cases the official verdict was swift: lone assassin;
no conspiracy. In all three cases serious doubts remain--doubts
that have encountered little more than official silence and denial.
The political assassinations of the '60s seem to have given rise
to a most peculiar policy at "The New York Times," a policy that
maintains that the "official" line is the *only* line. In the
process the "Times" has subjected its readers to distortion,
misrepresentation, and outright deception.
Harrison E. Salisbury, Assistant Managing Editor of the "Times,"
described the "Times" performance in the wake of the President's
assassination thusly: "The `Times' by principle and by habit
considers itself a `newspaper of record' [which] consciously seeks
to present all of the facts required by a public spirited citizen to
formulate an intelligent opinion. Clearly the shooting of the
President would require an extraordinary record--detailed, accurate,
clear, complete.
"Thus the initial responsibility of the `Times' is to provide an
intimate, detailed, accurate chronology of events. . . . The `Times'
record must be the one that will enable the reader to pick his way,
fairly well, through fact, fiction, and rumor."[5]
Salisbury's prose made good reading, but it hardly describes the
true nature of the "Times" coverage, epitomized by the definitive
headline of November 25, 1963, "President's Assassin Shot to Death
in Jail Corridor by a Dallas Citizen."[6] Thus the "Times" required
no Warren Commission to tell it what it had already assumed three
days after the President's assassination: that Lee Harvey Oswald,
the official suspect, was the assassin.
Nor were Jack Ruby's motives any mystery to the "Times" as was
demonstrated the same day by the headline, "Kennedy Admirer Fired
One Bullet."[7] Other stories, e.g. "Doctors Question Oswald's
Sanity," and "Lone Assassin the Rule in U.S.: Plotting More
Prevalent Abroad,"[8] tended to reinforce the erratic nature of the
"assassin" and the notion that conspiracies are foreign to the
American political scene.
Once the Warren Commission was formed the "Times" acted as little
less than a press agent for it. On March 30, 1964--a mere twelve
days after the Warren Commission had begun its field investigation
in Dallas--the "Times" carried an AP story reporting that the
Commission had "found no evidence that the crime was anything but
the irrational act of an individual, according to knowledgeable
sources."[10]
On June 1, the "Times" ran a Page One exclusive, "Panel to Reject
Theories of Plot in Kennedy's Death," which amounted to an extensive
preview of the Warren Report nearly four months prior to its
official release.
When the Warren Commission's report was issued on September 27,
1964 its most vocal advocate was "The New York Times." The lead
story said that "the commission analysed every issue in exhaustive,
almost archeological detail."[11] A "Times" editorial said that
"the facts--exhaustively gathered, independently checked and
cogently set forth--destroy the basis for conspiracy theories that
have grown weedlike in this country and abroad."[12]
Arthur Krock called the report a "definitive history of the
tragedy,"[13] and C.L. Sulzberger expressed relief at the report's
conclusions. "It was essential in these restless days," wrote
Sulzberger, "to remove unfounded suspicions that could excite latent
jingo spirit. And it was necessary to reassure our allies that ours
is a stable reliable democracy."[14]
Such unequivocal praise of the Warren Report was nothing less
than irresponsible journalism. There had been barely enough time
for a thorough reading of the report, and the testimony and exhibits
upon which it supposedly was based were not yet available. Without
the latter no objective appraisal of the report was possible.
The "Times" also made quite a financial proposition out of the
Warren Report. The entire report was printed as a supplement to the
September 28 edition. In addition the "Times" collaborated with the
Book of the Month Club on a hard-bound edition and with Bantam Books
on a soft-bound edition of the report (with a laudatory introduction
by Harrison Salisbury in the latter).
By the end of the first week Bantam had printed 1,100,000
copies.[15] Ironically the "Times" would later imply that the
critics of the report were guilty of exploitation because of the
"minor, if lucrative industry" that arose from their challenges to
the official version of the assassination.[16]
Nor was the "Times" less effusive when the 26-volumes of exhibits
and testimony were released on November 24. The "Times" instant
analysis of the more than 10 million words contained in the volumes
brought the premature observation that their publication by the
Warren Commission "brings to a close its inquiry, at once monumental
and meticulous."[17]
Within a month, again in collaboration with Bantam, the "Times"
published "The Witnesses," consisting of "highlights" of the
hearings before the Warren Commission, prepared by "a group of
editors and reporters of `The New York Times.'"
"The Witnesses" included the affidavit of Arnold Rowland stating
that he had observed a man with a rifle on the 6th floor of the
Texas School Book Depository before the assassination, but not his
testimony in which he stated that he had actually seen two men, and
that the FBI had told him to "forget it," and in which he stated his
opinion that the source of the shots had been the railroad yards in
*front* of the President.
Omitted from the testimony of amateur photographer Abraham
Zapruder was his statement that his immediate reaction was that the
shots had come from behind him (in *front* of the President).
Similar statements relating an immediate impression that the
shots had come from the front were deleted from the excerpted
testimony of David F. Powers, a special assistant to the President,
and Secret Service Agent Forest V. Sorrels, as it appeared in "The
Witnesses."
Deleted from the testimony of Secret Service Agents William
Greer, Clinton Hill, and Roy Kellerman was the description each gave
of a bullet wound in the President's back below the shoulder (the
"official" autopsy report placed it about six inches higher in the
neck). Also omitted from Agent Hill's excerpted testimony was his
statement that he was not certain that all of the shots had come
from the rear, and that they did not all sound alike.
Autopsy surgeon Commander James J. Humes' excerpted testimony in
"The Witnesses" omitted his statement that he had destroyed the
first draft of the autopsy, as well as his verbal gymnastics in
reconciling the location of the bullet holes six inches below the
collar in the President's shirt and jacket with the officially
designated location of the wound in the neck.
Both Humes and Colonel Pierre Finck, a second autopsy surgeon,
were skeptical that the nearly pristine bullet found on a stretcher
in Parkland Hospital could have hit both Kennedy and Governor
Connally (the Warren Commission ultimately concluded that this was
indeed the case), but these exchanges also were omitted from "The
Witnesses," as was the portion of the testimony of Nelson Delgado, a
friend of Oswald's from his Marine Corps days, in which he referred
to Oswald's extremely poor marksmanship.
Testimony left out of "The Witnesses" altogether included
numerous witnesses who reported at least some shots fired from the
front, including Jean Hill who reported seeing a man fleeing from
the area of the "grassy knoll" after the shooting. Also left out
was the testimony of Wilma Tice and reporter Seth Kantor who
reported seeing (the latter conversing with) Jack Ruby at Parkland
Hospital, as well as many others who gave relevant but inconvenient
testimony before the Warren Commission.
In short, "The Witnesses" was a careful selection of only that
testimony which tended to support the official findings contained in
the Warren Report. It was a patently biased and dishonest work,
shamelessly slanted toward the lone-assassin hypothesis, and
capitalizing on the legendary objectivity of "The New York Times."
In Europe where the press had been less eager to embrace the
official findings of the Warren Commission, the assassination
rapidly became a controversy. "Who Killed Kennedy," a critical book
by American expatriate Thomas Buchanan was already a best-seller by
the end of 1964.
In Britain, Bertrand Russell organized a "Who Killed Kennedy
Committee" composed of some of the most influential members of the
British intellectual community.
In December 1964, Hugh Trevor-Roper, well-known British historian
and Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, writing
in "The Sunday Times" of London, accused the Warren Commission of
setting up a smokescreen of irrelevant material while failing to ask
elementary and essential questions.
In the United States, too, the report slowly emerged as a major
issue--spurred first by a number of critical articles and later by a
series of major books.
George and Patricia Nash documented Commission negligence in the
October 1964 "New Leader" by locating without difficulty three
witnesses to the slaying of Patrolman Tippit who had not been called
by the Warren Commission, but whose accounts differed radically from
the Commission's.
The January and March 1965 issues of "Liberation" magazine
carried articles highly critical of the "Warren Report" by
Philadelphia attorney Vincent Salandria. An article in the January
1965 "American Bar Association Journal" by Alfredda Scobey, a lawyer
and former Warren Commission staff member, acknowledged that much of
the evidence against Oswald was circumstantial and strongly implied
that Oswald's conviction would have been less than guaranteed had he
gone to trial.
In February, 1966 the 18th annual meeting of the American Academy
of Forensic Sciences held a symposium which scored the Commission
for its failure to hear enough expert testimony, and for failing to
examine the photos and X-rays taken of the President's body during
the autopsy.
On May 29, 1966 the "Warren Report" became a national issue
overnight when "The Washington Post" ran an 8-column banner headline
on Page One, "An Inquest: Skeptical Postscript to Warren Group's
Report on Assassination," dealing with Harold Weisberg's "Whitewash"
and Edward J. Epstein's "Inquest." The article covered a sizeable
portion of page 1 and nearly all of page 3, and concluded that the
two books raised "grave doubts about the Commission's work."
Epstein had obtained interviews from several members of the
Warren Commission and its staff and was given access to a number of
internal Commission memoranda (the book began as an intended Masters
thesis). Concentrating on the internal workings of the Commission,
Epstein argued that bureaucratic pressures from within and time
pressures imposed from without had severely handicapped the
Commission with the result that the investigation was superficial
rather than exhaustive.
He cited the discrepancies pertaining to the location of the
President's back wound, noting that the holes in the President's
shirt and jacket, the report on the autopsy filed by FBI agents
Siebert and O'Neill, and the testimony of three Secret Service
agents all placed the location in the back below the shoulder while
the official autopsy report located the wound significantly higher
at the base of the neck. The higher location was essential to the
Warren Commission's theory that the wound in the President's throat
was one of exit for a bullet that had traversed his neck from the
rear.
Epstein contended that the Warren Commission was more interested
in dispelling rumors than in exposing facts and that it preferred
not to consider the possibility that there had been a second
assassin. He implied the belief that the Warren Commission had
deliberately altered the autopsy report, adding that if this were
the case the "Warren Report" would have to be viewed as an
expression of "political truth."[18]
Weisberg approached the issue on a much broader level by
carefully dissecting the mass of evidence purported by the Warren
Commission to prove that Oswald was the lone assassin. In addition
to the back wound discrepancy, Weisberg went into such matters as
Oswald's marksmanship; the lack of tangible evidence linking Oswald
with the shooting or the 6th floor window with the actual source of
the shots; the shooting of officer Tippit, etc. Weisberg strongly
implied that more than one gunman had been involved and that it was
by no means certain that Oswald had been one of them.
The major issues that arose out of these books and books that
followed included:
* "The Single-Bullet Theory:" The Commission's re-enactment
of the assassination and observation of the film of
the assassination taken by Zapruder revealed that from
the time when Kennedy would first have been visible to
a man perched in the 6th floor window until the time
Governor Connally was shot, Oswald's gun was capable of
firing only one round. The Commission concluded that a
virtually pristine bullet found on a stretcher at
Parkland Hospital had passed through the President's
neck, hit Connally in the back shattering a rib,
emerged from his chest, traversed his wrist, lodged in
his thigh, and then fell out onto the stretcher.
The Commission theorized that Connally had experienced a
delayed reaction to his wounds, explaining why the
Zapruder film appeared to show him unhit until a point
significantly after the President definitely had been.
Critics argued that it was extremely unlikely that one
bullet could have accounted for seven wounds, shattering
bone along the way, and still emerge undeformed. They
also argued that a bullet striking bone, as was the case
with Connally, results in an immediate reaction in
compliance with the physical law of transfer of momentum,
and that the later reaction by Connally, therefore,
indicated that he had been hit by a second bullet.
* "The Grassy Knoll:" Law-enforcement officers and bystanders
immediately converged on this area after the
assassination as the apparent source of the shots. It
was located to the right front of the President.
* "The Head Snap:" The Zapruder film revealed that upon impact
of the final and fatal bullet the President's head was
thrust violently to the left and to the rear--a reaction
that seemed consistent with a shot fired from the grassy
knoll.
* "The Throat Wound:" The wound in the President's throat was
originally diagnosed as an entrance wound by the doctors
who treated him at Parkland Hospital. The Commission's
contention that it was an exit wound was challenged by
most of the critics.
The Warren Report was soon under attack from all sides. In July
1966 Richard Goodwin, a former advisor and close associate of
President Kennedy, reviewed "Inquest" for "Book Week." He called
the book "impressive" and called for the convening of a panel to
evaluate the findings of the Warren Commission and determine if a
completely new investigation was warranted.[19] He later added that
there were other associates of the late President "who feel as I
do."[20]
In September 1966 a Harris Poll found that 54% of the American
public doubted that the Warren Commission had told the full
story.[21] The same month Mark Lane's "Rush to Judgment" made the
Best Seller List of "The New York Times" (by November 1966 it was
the Number One Best Seller, a position it maintained for several
months).
The "Times" of London called for a new investigation toward the
end of September 1966, a call that was echoed in "The London
Observer" by Lord Devlin, one of England's most respected legal
figures.
On September 28, 1966 Manhattan Congressman Theodore Kupferman
asked Congress to conduct its own investigation into the adequacy of
the "Warren Report."
Writing in the October 1966 "Commentary" Alexander Bickel,
Chancellor Kent of Yale University, called for a new investigation
observing that "the findings of the Warren Commission, and the
fatuous praise with which all of the voices of the great majority
greeted them two years ago, were in some measure a matter of wish
fulfillment."
The November 25, 1966 cover of "Life" magazine featured a frame
from the Zapruder film with the bold caption: "Did Oswald Act
Alone? A Matter of Reasonable Doubt." "Life" questioned the
validity of the single-bullet theory and concluded that "a new
investigative body should be set up, perhaps at the initiative of
Congress."
The January 14, 1967 "Saturday Evening Post" also carried a cover
story challenging the Warren Report, and it also ran an editorial
calling for a new inquiry.
Others who publicly expressed doubts about the conclusions of the
Warren Commission included Senators Russell Long, Eugene McCarthy,
Strom Thurmond, William Fulbright, and Thomas Dodd; Congressmen
Ogden Reid, John W. Wydler, and William F. Ryan; Arthur Schlesinger
Jr., William Buckley, Norman Mailer, Murray Kempton, Max Lerner,
Pete Hammill, Walter Lippman, Dwight MacDonald, Richard H. Rovere,
Cardinal Cushing and many others.
The reaction of "The New York Times" was less than enthusiastic.
Following the May 29, 1966 "Washington Post" headline, a "Times"
reporter was assigned to do a story on the emerging controversy.
His story appeared on June 5--not on page 1, but on page 42. The
author of the piece wrote one of the critics: "With space
limitations and national desk instructions, I am sorry that
everything but the single-bullet hypothesis got forced out of the
story.[22]
"Whitewash" and "Inquest" were reviewed in the July 3 "New York
Times Book Review" by the "Times"' Supreme Court correspondent, Fred
Graham. The "Times" apparently saw no conflict in assigning Graham
to review two books severely critical, implicitly if not explicitly,
of the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The review was
largely a defense of the methods utilized by the Warren Commission
under the direction of "the nation's most distinguished jurist."
Graham called Weisberg a "painstaking investigator," but added
that he "questions so many points made by the report that the effect
is blunted--it is difficult to believe that any institution could be
as inept, careless, wrong, or venal as he implies. Rather, the
reader is impressed with the elusiveness of truth. . . ."
Graham called "Inquest" superficial, and he criticized Epstein's
use of the words "political truth," claiming that Epstein was
actually charging deliberate fraud. Graham admitted that the
single-bullet theory was "porous," but he maintained that no other
explanation made sense because if another assassin had fired from
the Book Depository it would have been unlikely that he and his
rifle could disappear without a trace.
Graham avoided alternatives that did make sense, e.g., that an
assassin or assassins had fired from the grassy knoll. He concluded
that "a major scholarly study is not feasible now because the
crucial papers in the archives . . . have not yet been de-
classified."
On the one hand he was ignoring the fact that the "Times" had
lauded the Warren Report before any evidence was available, and on
the other hand he was passing judgment in advance on any subsequent
critical works, a fact that should have disqualified him as a
reviewer of future books on the subject.
On August 28, 1966 Mark Lane's "Rush to Judgment" and Leo
Sauvage's "The Oswald Affair" were reviewed in "The New York Times
Book Review" by Fred Graham. His review gave the false impression
that both books relied mainly on eyewitness testimony rather than
more tangible hard evidence. "Eyewitness testimony," noted Graham,
"is far less reliable than it seems to be."
He made the incredible observation that the main source of the
Warren Commission's dilemma lay in the fact that it had to issue a
report. The broad proof against Oswald and the lack of evidence
pointing to any other possible assassin, according to Graham, gave
the Commission no choice "but to smooth over the inconsistencies to
the extent possible and brand Oswald the lone assassin."
Graham concluded with the unsubstantiable claim that Oswald would
easily have been convicted of murder by any jury faced with the
material before the Warren Commission and in these books.
As the controversy grew the "Times" greeted the issue with a most
astonishing article in the September 11, 1966 "New York Times
Magazine," entitled "No Conspiracy, But--Two Assassins, Perhaps?" by
Henry Fairlie, an English political commentator. Fairlie
acknowledged that it was hard to dispute the contention that the
Warren Commission "did a hurried and slovenly job," and he conceded
that there might well have been more than one assassin; "available
evidence seems to me confusing."
But he contended that even if this supposition were made, "it
still does not justify making the long leap to a conspiracy theory,"
because even if two or more people were involved, he argued, "it is
possible to regard such people as fanatics or nuts and nothing
more." Of course, if there were two or more people involved it was,
*by definition*, a conspiracy.
The article concluded that it was not the proper time for a new
investigation, for "to set up another independent body with no
promise that it would succeed, would be to agitate public doubt
without being certain that it could in the end, settle it. Popular
fear and hysteria are dangerous weirds to excite . . ."
Thus it would appear that to Henry Fairlie and "The New York
Times" it was more important to support the official findings of the
Warren Commission--even though questionable--than to look further
into the President's assassination and risk adding to the already
existing doubt and scepticism about those findings, warranted or
not.
The Times Investigation
Toward the end of 1966 a degree of dissatisfaction with the
conclusions of the Warren Commission began to manifest itself at the
"Times."
Tom Wicker wrote in his column that a number of impressive books
had opened to question the Warren Commission's "procedures, its
objectivity and its members diligence. The damaging fear has been
planted, here as well as abroad, that the commission--even if
subconsciously--was more concerned to quiet public fears of
conspiracy and treachery than it was to establish the unvarnished
truth, and thus made the facts fit a convenient thesis." Wicker
endorsed the call for a Congressional review that had been made by
Congressman Kupferman.[23]
Harrison Salisbury radically revised his early praise of the
Report--*not* in the "Times" but in the November 1966 issue of "The
Progressive," a magazine of limited circulation. While reiterating
his belief that Oswald acted alone, Salisbury wrote that his reading
of "Inquest" and "Rush to Judgment," both of which he called
"serious, thoughtful examinations," had convinced him that questions
of major importance remained unanswered.
Like Wicker, he endorsed the Kupferman resolution, adding the
principal areas of doubt. The nation no longer lives in the trauma
which persisted for months after the President's death. The Warren
Commission had good reason to concern itself for the national
interest, to worry about national morale, to take upon itself the
task of damping down rumors. But today and tomorrow the sole
criteria of an inquiry should be the truth--every element of it that
can be obtained--and a frank facing of unresolved and unresolvable
dilemmas.
On November 16, 1966, on the other hand, Clifton Daniel, then
Managing Editor, in addressing a public symposium on "The Role of
the Mass Media in Achieving and Preserving a Free Society," defended
the "Warren Report" and accused its critics of "dragging red
herrings all over the place."[24]
Under this setting the "Times" quietly undertook, in early
November 1966, a new investigation of the assassination under the
direction of Harrison Salisbury. "We will go over all the areas of
doubt." Salisbury told "Newsweek," "and hope to eliminate
them."[25]
On November 25, with the unpublicized investigation already
underway, the "Times" ran a carefully worded editorial, "Unanswered
Questions," which maintained that there were enough solid doubts of
thoughtful citizens to require official answers. "Further dignified
silence, or merely more denials by the commission or its staff, are
no longer enough."
About a month into the investigation Salisbury received
permission from the government of North Vietnam to visit Hanoi, and
he quickly departed for Paris to complete final preparations for the
trip. Shortly after his departure the "Times" investigation was
ended.
Reporter Peter Kihss, a member of the team, wrote Ms. Sylvia
Meagher on January 7, 1967, "Regrettably the project has broken off
without any windup story, at least until Harrison Salisbury, who was
in charge, gets back from North Vietnam."
Another member of the team, Gene Roberts--then Atlanta bureau
chief and at the time I spoke with him National Editor of the
"Times" (he recently left to become Executive Editor of "The
Philadelphia Enquirer")--told me that "There was no real connection
between Salisbury going to Hanoi and the decision not to publish, or
to disband the inquiry. It just kind of happened that way.
Presumably if he had been here he might have knocked it off even
sooner or he might have continued it a week or two. I just don't
know.[26]
Roberts told me that the team was unable to find evidence
supporting the contentions of the critics. "We found no evidence
that the Warren Report was wrong," he said, "which is not to say
that the Warren Report was right. We are not in the business of
printing opinion, and that is why nothing was printed in the
end."[27]
If Salisbury's words to "Newsweek" are to be taken literally the
purpose of the investigation to begin with was to shore up the
findings of the Warren Commission. There can be little doubt that
if the investigation had strongly reaffirmed those findings it would
have been boldly splashed across the front page. Yet there now seem
to be several versions as to just what that investigation found.
George Palmer, Assistant to the Managing Editor, wrote one
questioner that nothing had been printed about the investigation
"for the simple reason that there were no findings,"[28] but he
wrote me that "the discontinuance of our inquiries meant that they
had substantially reaffirmed the findings of the Warren
Commission."[29]
Palmer also wrote me that the determination to discontinue the
investigation was made upon the *return* of Harrison Salisbury from
Hanoi. Walter Sullivan, "Times" Science Editor, writing on behalf
of Salisbury, wrote Washington attorney Bernard Fensterwald,
Chairman of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, "It is true
that an intensive investigation of the J.F. Kennedy assassination
was carried out by the "Times" staff under Mr. Salisbury's
supervision. It was set aside when he suddenly received permission
to visit Hanoi. At this stage, Mr. Salisbury tells me, it had
become obvious that the President was killed by a single demented
man and that no conspiracy was involved. The investigation has
therefore not been pursued further.[30]
Following the "Times" at best inconclusive investigation its
advocacy of the official line became at least as rigid as it had
ever been. An anonymous review of "The Truth About the
Assassination" by Charles Roberts, "Newsweek"'s White House
correspondent, said:
"Publish 10,400,000 words of research and what do you get? In
the case of the Warren Commission and the book business, you get a
fabulously successful spin-off called the assassination industry,
whose products would never stand the scrutiny of Consumers Union.
Consumers buy it as they buy most trash: the packaging promises
satisfaction but the innards are mostly distortions, unsupported
theories and gaping omissions" that are "neatly debunked by Charles
Roberts. . . .
"By selecting the incredible and the contradictory, scavengers
like Mark Lane sowed confusion. By writing an honest guide for the
perplexed, Roberts performs a public service."[31]
In fact, Roberts' book was extremely superficial, its text
consuming a mere 118 pages. It glossed over the crucial evidence,
substituting personal invective against the critics for answers to
their criticisms.
In late 1967 the publication of "Six Seconds In Dallas" by
Professor Josiah Thomson and "Accessories After The Fact" by Sylvia
Meagher further fanned the flames of the Warren controversy. Ms.
Meagher had previously distinguished herself by putting together a
subject index to the 26-volumes--a service the Warren Commission had
neglected to provide.
"Six Seconds In Dallas" was previewed by "The Saturday Evening
Post," which featured the book's jacket on its December 2, 1967
cover along with the headline "Major New Study Shows Three Assassins
Killed Kennedy." An editorial in that issue stated that it had now
been "demonstrated fairly conclusively that the Warren Commission
was wrong."
Thompson's book contained a comprehensive study of the Zapruder
film, graphs of the reaction of Connally, tables summarizing the
impressions of eyewitnesses, interviews with crucial witnesses,
mathematical calculations of the acceleration of the President's
head in relation to the movement of the car, etc. The book was
profusely illustrated with photographs, drawings and charts.
"Accessories After the Fact" was an exhaustive analysis of the 26
volumes and related material from the National Archives not
contained in the volumes. "Playboy" called it "the best of the new
crop of books--and the most chilling in its implications."
"Playboy" called the most unsettling aspect of both books "the
failure of the Warren Commission to investigate, evaluate--or even
acknowledge--the huge body of evidence in its possession indicating
the possible presence of more than one gunman . . .
"These new books lend weight to widening appeals by Congressmen
and the press for an independent new investigation . . ."[32]
Congressman Theodore Kupferman said, "On the subject of the
Warren Report, Sylvia Meagher could replace a computer," calling her
book "overwhelming."[33]
Congressman William F. Ryan said, "Sylvia Meagher raises a number
of disturbing questions." He added that it pointed out the need for
a Congressional review of the findings of the Warren
Commission."[34]
Both books were reviewed in "The New York Times Book Review" on
February 28, 1968--by Fred Graham, of course. Graham found it
astonishing that there was such a degree of disbelief "in a document
that has the endorsement of some of the highest officials in the
Government." He contended that inconsistencies notwithstanding,
"None of the critics have been able to suggest any other explanation
that fits the known facts better than the Warren Commission's."
Graham found Ms. Meagher's book "a bore," and he found that
Thompson's scientific approach ignored "the larger logic of the
Warren Report. Although it has seemed that the flow of anti-`Warren
Report' books would never end," he continued, "these two may
represent a sweet climax."
The New Orleans Aftermath
"The New York Times" followed the March 1, 1969 acquittal of Clay
L. Shaw (charged by New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison with conspiring to
assassinate the late President) with a renewed offensive against
previous criticism of the "Warren Report." An editorial on March 2
referred to Garrison's "obsessional conviction about the fraudulent
character of the Warren Commission" as a "fantasy."
The "News of the Week in Review" that day carried a piece by
Sidney Zion, "Garrison Flops on the Conspiracy Theory," which
maintained, in essence, that Garrison had "restored the credibility
of the Warren Report." The "Times" ignored the fact that the jury
had been charged solely with the duty of determining the guilt or
innocence of Mr. Shaw, not with determining the validity of the
Warren Report.
On April 20, 1969 "The New York Times Magazine" carried an
article, "The Final Chapter in the Assassination Controversy?" by
Edward J. Epstein, onetime critic of the Warren Report.
Epstein's article was a bitter attack upon the critics which
impugned their motives and integrity, and implied that much of their
criticism was politically motivated. He suggested that many of the
critics were "demonologists" with "books as well as conspiracy
theories to advertise," doubtless excluding his own "Inquest" from
this category. He conspicuously neglected to mention that only
"Inquest" had accused the Commission of seeking "political truth."
Epstein was less critical of Professor Thompson and Ms. Meagher,
both of whom had disassociated themselves from Garrison and his
investigations, but he maintained that their books contained only
two substantial arguments which, if true, would preclude Oswald as
the lone assassin--the improbability of the single-bullet theory and
the backward acceleration of the President's head.
To dispose of the first point Epstein relied upon a CBS inquiry
which had theorized that 3 jiggles in the Zapruder film represented
the photographer's reaction to the sound of shots, and therefore
themselves coincided with the points at which the shots were fired.
CBS had thereby hypothesized that the first shot had been fired
at an earlier point than the Warren Commission had believed likely-
-at a point when the President would have been visible from the 6th
floor window for about 1/10th of a second through a break in the
foliage of a large oak tree which otherwise obstructed the view
until a later point.
However, CBS had failed to mention that jiggles appeared at
several other points in the film, and that there were five jiggles,
not three, in the frame sequence in question. "Life" magazine,
which owns the original Zapruder film, rejected the "jiggle theory"
in November 1966, attributing all but the most violent one that
coincided with the head shot to imperfections in the camera
mechanism.[35]
The CBS analysis was a skillful deception which has been
thoroughly discredited, including by Professor Thompson in his book
(see "Six Seconds In Dallas," Appendix F--a critique of the CBS
documentary, "The Warren Report"). Epstein maintained that the
CBS analysis persuasively argued that the President and Governor
Connally could have been hit by separate bullets by a single
assassin, and that the single-bullet theory had therefore been
rendered "irrelevant."
What is more significant than the questionable nature of the
CBS analysis is the fact that Epstein misrepresented the
conclusions, for CBS did not theorize an earlier hit, but an
earlier miss. CBS recognized that an earlier hit meant a steeper
trajectory, precluding the throat wound being one of exit, and again
implying a fraudulent autopsy report.
CBS reluctantly endorsed the single-bullet theory as "essential"
to the lone-assassin findings of the Warren Commission.[36]
Epstein, too, recognized this when he wrote in "Inquest": "Either
both men were hit by the same bullet, or there were two
assassins."[37] His misrepresentation of the CBS study alleviated
him of the problem of credibly defending the single-bullet theory-
-an undertaking he obviously did not relish.
Epstein dismissed the head movement by citing a report released
by the Justice Department in January 1969 in which a panel of
forensic pathologists who had studied the sequestered autopsy photos
and X-rays had concluded that they supported the Warren Report. But
even superficial study of the Panel Report (its popular name)
revealed glaring differences between it and the original autopsy
report.
Thus again Epstein relied upon a study which raised more
questions than it answered in an effort to explain away
irreconcilable deficiencies in the "Warren Report." In this way he
was able to conclude that he knew of no substantial evidence "that
indicated there was more than one rifleman firing."
Ms. Meagher and Professor Thompson sent the "Times" letters of
almost identical length, both challenging the veracity of the CBS
study and the Panel Report. But Ms. Meagher's letter also included
quotes from a letter Epstein had written her more than a year
earlier: "I am shocked that 5 not 3 frames were blurred. If this
is so, CBS was egregiously dishonest and the tests are
meaningless." And, "By a common sense standard, which you point out
the `Warren Report' uses, I think your book shows it extremely
unlikely, even inconceivable, that a single assassin was
responsible."
The "Times" thanked Ms. Meagher for her letter, adding that "We
are planning to run a letter along very similar lines from Josiah
Thompson and I am sure that you will understand that space
limitations will prevent us from using both."
Ms. Meagher wrote again asking that the "Times" reconsider and
print at least the paragraph which revealed that Epstein knew in
advance that the CBS claims were specious, and that his private
admissions in writing were the exact opposite of his representations
in the "Times."
"One understands the `Times' unwillingness to acknowledge to its
readers that it has given Epstein a platform from which to
disseminate not mere error, but deliberate falsehood," wrote Ms.
Meagher. "However I would like to request you to reconsider your
decision . . . in the interests of fair play and of undoing a
disservice to your readers that was surely unintended."
She received no reply, and her letter was not published.
Harold Weisberg wrote the "Times" asking that certain statements
which he felt were libelous be corrected, and asking that he be
permitted to write an article rebutting Epstein. The "Times"
replied denying libel and maintaining that the article itself was
sound. "If however you want to write us a short letter of not more
than 250 or 300 words challenging Epstein's interpretation of the
assassination," the "Times" added, "we'd be glad to consider it for
publication. But I'd like to caution you to avoid difficult, arcane
details that would simply baffle our readers."
Readers of "The New York Times" . . . baffled?
A Heritage of Stone
On December 1, 1970 the daily book columns of the "Times" carried
a dual review of two books on the Jim Garrison affair. The first,
"American Grotesque," by James Kirkwood, was critical of Garrison
and the methods he utilized in prosecuting Clay Shaw. The second,
"A Heritage of Stone," was Jim Garrison's own account of the Kennedy
assassination.
The review by "Times" staff reviewer John Leonard, was entitled
"Who Killed John F. Kennedy?" The portion dealing with "A Heritage
of Stone" follows:
Which brings us to Jim Garrison's "A Heritage of Stone."
The District Attorney of Orleans Parish argues that
Kennedy's assassination can only he explained by a "model"
that pins the murder on the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA could have engineered Dallas in behalf of the
military-intelligence-industrial complex that feared the
President's disposition toward a detente with the Russians.
Mr. Garrison nowhere in his book mentions Clay Shaw, or the
botch his office made of Shaw's prosecution; he is,
however, heavy on all the other characters who have become
familiar to us, via late-night talk shows on television.
And he insists that the Warren Commission, the executive
branch of the government, some members of the Dallas Police
Department, the pathologists at Bethesda who performed the
second Kennedy autopsy and many, many others must have
known they were lying to the American public.
Mysteries Persist
Frankly, I prefer to believe that the Warren Commission
did a poor job, rather than a dishonest one. I like to
think that Mr. Garrison invents monsters to explain
incompetence. But until somebody explains why two
autopsies came to two different conclusions about the
President's wounds, why the limousine was washed out and
rebuilt without investigation, why certain witnesses near
the "grassy knoll" were never asked to testify before the
Commission, why we were all so eager to buy Oswald's
brilliant marksmanship in split seconds, why no one
inquired into Jack Ruby's relations with a staggering
variety of strange people, why a "loner" like Oswald always
had friends and could always get a passport--who can blame
the Garrison guerrillas for fantasizing?
Something stinks about this whole affair. "A Heritage
of Stone" rehashes the smelliness: the recipe is as
unappetizing as our doubts about the official version of
what happened. (Would then-Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy have endured his brother's murder in silence? Was
John Kennedy quite so liberated from cold war cliches as
Mr. Garrison maintains?) But the stench is there, and
clings to each of us. Why were Kennedy's neck organs not
examined at Bethesda for evidence of a frontal shot? Why
was his body whisked away to Washington before the legally
required Texas inquest? Why?
This review was certainly not an unfair one, and it raised some
rather searching questions--questions one rarely saw asked in the
"Times." But this review appeared only in the early edition.
Before the second edition could reach the stands it underwent a
strange metamorphosis. The title was changed from "Who Killed John
F. Kennedy?" to "The Shaw-Garrison Affair," and the review now read
as follows:
Which brings us to Jim Garrison's "A Heritage of Stone."
The District Attorney of Orleans Parish argues that
Kennedy's assassination can only he explained by a "model"
that pins the murder on the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA could have engineered Dallas in behalf of the
military-intelligence-industrial complex that feared the
President's disposition toward a detente with the Russians.
Mr. Garrison nowhere in his book mentions Clay Shaw, or the
botch his office made of Shaw's prosecution; he is,
however, heavy on all the other characters who have become
familiar to us via late-night talk shows on television.
And he insists that the Warren Commission, the executive
branch of the government, some members of the Dallas Police
Department, the pathologists at Bethesda who performed the
second Kennedy autopsy and many, many others must have
known they were lying to the American public.
Frankly, I prefer to believe that the Warren Commission
did a poor job, rather than a dishonest one. I like to
think that Mr. Garrison invents monsters to explain
incompetence.[38]
Thus the paragraph heading "Mysteries Persist" had mysteriously
vanished, and the last 30 lines of the review had been whisked
away--into some subterranean "Times" "memory hole," no doubt. The
meaning of the review was completely altered, and the questions
which the "Times" apparently feels are unaskable remained unasked.
A letter to the "Times" inquiring as to the reason for alteration
of the original review brought a response from George Palmer,
Assistant to the Managing Editor: "Deleting that material . . .
involved routine editing in line with a long-standing policy of our
paper. Our book reviewers are granted full freedom to write
whatever they wish about the books and authors they are dealing
with, but we do not permit personalized editorials in the book
columns."[39]
This was a form letter which the "Times" sent out, with minor
variations, to those who questioned the two reviews. The recipient
of one such letter observed that the line "Frankly I *prefer* to
believe* that the Warren Commission did a poor job rather than a
dishonest one," was clearly editorial in nature--surely much more so
than the material that was deleted. To this Palmer replied: "I
don't believe these comments represented the type of excessive
editorializing our editors had in mind when they made the
deletions."[40]
The "Times" seems to have clarified just what it considers
"excessive editorializing" when on September 29, 1971 Christopher
Lehmann-Haupt, in reviewing "The Magician," by Sol Stein, described
the protagonist as "a random case; he is one of those `types,' like
Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray, who are born to lead, but
lacking the equipment to do so, must assassinate the true leaders."
The "Times" saw nothing "excessive" or "editorial" in this review,
and it appeared in the second edition exactly as it had appeared in
the first.
Interestingly enough, then Managing Editor, Turner Catledge,
pledged after the death of Oswald that future articles and headlines
would refer to Oswald as the *alleged* assassin. The American
system of justice carrying with it the presumption of innocence
until guilt is proven in a court of law. Catledge's pledge has been
consistently and systematically disregarded ever since.[41]
The Eighth Anniversary
One of the important witnesses for the Warren Commission was
Charles Givens, a porter employed at the Book Depository. In a
deposition taken by Commission lawyer David W. Belin, Givens
testified that he had left the 6th floor (where he worked) at about
11:30 a.m. on the morning of the assassination, but that he had
forgotten his cigarettes, and when he returned to retrieve them at
about noon he encountered Oswald lurking near the Southeast corner
window--the alleged sniper's nest.
Writing in the August 13, 1971 "Texas Observer," Sylvia Meagher
cast great doubt upon the veracity of Givens and the methods of the
Warren Commission. Her article, "The Curious Testimony of Mr.
Givens," revealed that material from the National Archives relating
to Givens gave an entirely different account .
On the day of the assassination Givens told authorities that he
had last seen Oswald at 11:50 a.m. reading a newspaper on the
*first* floor of the Depository. Neither then nor in two subsequent
affidavits sworn to prior to his Warren Commission testimony did he
ever mention having returned to the 6th floor.
However, an FBI agent's report noted a statement by Lt. Jack
Revill of the Dallas Police that Givens had previously had
difficulty with the Dallas Police and probably "would change his
testimony for money." Moreover, David Belin, the lawyer who took
Givens testimony, was aware of Givens' earlier statements, for he
had noted them in a memo six weeks *before* Givens testified. In
that same memo he noted that three other Depository employees, like
Givens, had also reported seeing Oswald on the first floor.
David Belin's reply in the same issue of "The Texas Observer"
decried the "assassination sensationalists," assured the reader that
he was an honorable man, and insisted that the Warren Commission had
done a thorough and competent job. "The Texas Observer," commenting
on the exchange, called Belin's answer "the slick irrelevant reply
of a lawyer who doesn't have much of a defense to present."
Ms. Meagher sent copies of her article, Belin's reply and the
accompanying editorial to several people at the "Times" including
Harrison Salisbury, whose responsibilities include editing the Op-Ed
page. Salisbury's position seemed ambiguous, for since his article
in "The Progressive" in 1966 he had again implied acceptance of the
official version of the assassination in his introduction to the
"Times/Bantam" edition of the "Report of the National Commission on
the Causes and Prevention of Violence."
His position would not be ambiguous for long. On November 22,
1971--the 8th anniversary of the President's death--a headline "The
Warren Report Was Right" appeared emblazoned across the top of the
Op-Ed page. The article decried the "assassination sensationalists"
and its author was none other than David W. Belin.
Ms. Meagher sent a second copy of the "Observer" material to
Salisbury, and it was returned with a polite form letter thanking
her for her manuscript which the "Times" regretted it could not use.
She replied that the form letter did not surprise her, but that she
had not sent a manuscript, but rather documented material which
demonstrated irrefutably deliberate misrepresentation of evidence by
the Warren Commission, and which "clearly implicated David W. Belin
in serious impropriety and misfeasance."
She noted that "You have not questioned, much less challenged,
the documentary evidence I made available to you twice in two
months. Instead you provided a forum for Belin to influence your
readers, without even cautioning them that serious charges had been
published elsewhere on his conduct as an assistant counsel for the
Warren Commission."
Ms. Meagher concluded that the "Times" 1964 praise of the Warren
Report "may have been merely gullible or unprofessional," but that
in 1971 it was simply "propaganda on behalf of a discredited
Government paper," wrapped in sanctimony and pretending "to seek
truth or justice."
Salisbury's reply read in full: "Do forgive the form card which
went back to you. That was a product of our bureaucracy, I'm
afraid. I hadn't seen your letter, alas, having been out of the
office for a few days."
The Kennedy Photos and X-Rays
The photos and X-rays taken of the President's body during the
autopsy represent possibly the most crucial evidence of the
assassination. They could settle whether the President was hit in
the neck or in the back, and they could resolve considerable doubt
as to the direction from which the various bullets were fired.
Nevertheless, they were allegedly never viewed by the Warren
Commission. In late 1966 they were deposited in the National
Archives under the proviso that only Government agencies would be
permitted to view them for five years at which time "recognized
experts in the field of pathology or related areas of science and
technology" might be permitted to view them.
Toward the end of 1968 D.A. Garrison of New Orleans took legal
steps to secure release of the material. In an effort to block
access, the Justice Department released a report by a panel of
forensic pathologists who had examined the photos and X-rays a year
earlier and had reported that they confirmed the medical findings
that all the shots came from the rear.
The Panel Report was covered for the "Times" by Fred Graham. His
uncritical story was carried on page 1 and consumed eight additional
columns on page 17.[42] But far from resolving the controversy the
Panel Report only raised new questions, for even perfunctory study
of it revealed radical differences between it and the original
autopsy report and the Warren Commission testimony of the autopsy
surgeons, not the least of which was the fact that the fatal head
wound had mysteriously moved by approximately 4 inches.
Some of the discrepancies were brought to Graham's attention by
Sylvia Meagher. He replied: "Thank you for your thoughtful and
informative letter about the Kennedy X-rays and photographs. I wish
I had known this at the time, but perhaps it is not too late to
backtrack a bit and see if anyone can come up with explanations. . .
. I'll see what can be turned up, and if anything can, I trust
you'll be reading about it."[43]
There was no follow-up story. The following month Dr. Cyril H.
Wecht, an eminently qualified forensic pathologist, testified in the
District of Columbia Court of General Sessions about the
inconsistencies between the Panel Report and the autopsy report.
Judge Charles Halleck was sufficiently impressed with Dr. Wecht's
testimony to rule against the Justice Department, ordering that
Wecht be permitted to examine the autopsy material as the basis for
his testimony on the medical findings.
(The ruling was later rendered moot when the Justice Department
announced it would appeal. This would have resulted in an
indefinite delay beyond the conclusion of the Shaw trial, and
Garrison withdrew his suit.)
The "Times" coverage of this event consisted of a 4-paragraph UPI
dispatch which omitted any mention of Dr. Wecht's testimony
regarding the Panel Report. The UPI story was buried on page
13.[44] Five days later Fred Graham reported on the Justice
Department's announcement that it would appeal Judge Halleck's order
that the photos and X-rays be produced at the Shaw trial, but the
story contained no reference to Dr. Wecht or his testimony.[45]
When the first person "not under Government auspices" was
permitted to see the photos and X-rays this year the *exclusive* was
obtained by Fred Graham of "The New York Times."
On January 9, 1972 the "Times" announced on page 1 that Dr. John
K. Lattimer, Chairman of the Department of Urology at Columbia
University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, had viewed the
photos and X-rays and found that they "eliminate any doubt
completely" about the validity of the Warren Commission's conclusion
that Oswald fired all the shots.
Dr. Lattimer disagreed with the Commission only insofar as he
said that the neck wound was actually *higher* than the Commission
had reported. He maintained that therefore the throat wound could
not possibly be one of entrance because the front wound was so far
below the back one that "if anyone were to have shot him from the
front, they would have to be squatting on the floor in front of
him."
Graham's article noted that "some skeptics" regarded Lattimer as
"an apologist for the `Warren Report,'" but he did not elaborate.
In fact Dr. Lattimer had earned the title over a period of several
years by publishing a number of sycophantic articles in defense of
the "Warren Report." In the March 13, 1970 issue of "Medical World
News," for example, he wrote:
"Oswald showed what the educated, modern-day, traitorous
guerrilla can do among his own people--working with religious-type
conviction, willing to lay down his own life, but proposing to kill
as many anti-communists as possible. Oswald was devious, skilled at
his business, and amazingly cool."
More important than Dr. Lattimer's background, however, is the
fact that a number of interesting questions were raised both by his
selection as the person who would finally be permitted to study the
autopsy material, and by the rather curious nature of his
"observations."
How, for example. did a urologist with virtually no knowledge of
forensic pathology[46] (the branch of forensic medicine specializing
in the determination of the cause and manner of death in cases where
it is sudden, suspicious, unexpected, unexplained, traumatic,
medically undetected or violent) qualify as an "expert in the field
of pathology or related areas of science and technology" to view the
autopsy photos and X-rays?
Why was a urologist chosen when three doctors with experience in
forensic pathology, including Dr. Wecht, had also applied? Dr.
Wecht is Chief Medical Examiner of Pittsburgh, Research Professor of
Law and Director of the Institute of Forensic Sciences at Duquesne
University School of Law, past-President of the American College of
Legal Medicine, and past-President of the American Academy of
Forensic Sciences.
By coincidence. of the four applicants, only the urologist, Dr.
Lattimer, had spoken or written of the "Warren Report" in an
uncritical fashion. How could he contend unequivocally that the
photos and X-rays "eliminate any doubt completely" that *Oswald* had
fired all the shots--something they are incapable of proving to
anyone not endowed with telepathic powers?
Moreover, if a shot from the front would have had to come from
the floor of the President's car as Dr. Lattimer suggests, a shot
from the rear following the same trajectory in reverse would have
ended up *in* the floor.
How could such a bullet following this new steeper trajectory
have altered its course to strike Governor Connally below the right
armpit and exit below his right nipple as the Warren Commission
contends it did?
Even more curious is the fact that despite the inconsistencies of
the Panel Report, it did *not* cite a higher location for the "neck"
wound.
Thus the Panel Report, the autopsy report, and Dr. Lattimer all
offered *different* descriptions of the President's wounds.
None of these questions were raised by Fred Graham. He did add
that Burke Marshall, the Kennedy family representative charged with
deciding which "recognized experts" will be admitted, was also
considering the requests of Dr. Cyril H. Wecht and Dr. John Nichols,
"pathologists who have written critically of the Warren Commission
report," and Dr. E. Forrest Chapman.
"Mr. Marshall said that in granting or denying permission, he
would not consider whether applicants were supporters or critics of
the `Warren Report,' but only if they had a serious historical
purpose in seeing the material."
In 1964 Burke Marshall, then head of the Civil Rights Section of
the Justice Department, showed a keen interest in investigating how
Malcolm X was financing his international travels aimed at bringing
the American racial question before the United Nations--an area
which would hardly seem to be of concern to the Civil Rights
Division.[47]
It was reliably reported to me that the Lattimer story caused
serious repercussions at the "Times" as a result of a torrent of
outraged letters from forensic experts and scholars astounded that
Dr. Lattimer had assumed the role of expert in a highly specialized
field in which he had no competence, and that the "Times" had lent
him credibility with its uncritical reporting.
Possibly as a result of these letters or possibly because he was
becoming somewhat skeptical himself, Fred Graham telephoned Dr.
Wecht in May 1972 to inquire as to the status of his application.
Dr. Wecht told Graham that Marshall had totally ignored repeated
letters and telegrams seeking either an approval or rejection of his
application. According to Dr. Wecht, Fred Graham made at least two
calls to Burke Marshall after his initial conversation with Wecht,
and Graham applied at least some degree of pressure upon Marshall to
act upon Wecht's application.
Whether or not the spectre of an article in "The New York Times"
asking why the autopsy material continued to be inaccessible helped
to influence his decision is impossible to say, but in mid-June,
Burke Marshall approved Dr. Wecht's application.
Dr. Wecht spent two days at the National Archives on August 23
and 24, making a detailed study of the photographs, X-rays, and
related physical evidence. Because of the positive role Graham had
played, Wecht offered him an exclusive interview.
Wecht limited his discussion of his observations pending closer
study and consultation and issuance of a detailed report. He did
discuss a "little flap" of loose scalp which "might have been an
entrance or exit wound," but which had never been mentioned before
either by Dr. Lattimer or in the autopsy report or in the Panel
Report.
He also disclosed that photographs of the top of the removed
brain "disclose a sizeable foreign object that could have been a
flattened bullet fragment or a brain tumor." This object was
reported by the Panel, but was not mentioned in the autopsy report
or by Dr. Lattimer.
Wecht also reported that he had requested permission to examine
the preserved brain of the President (essential to any thorough
examination, and specifically necessary if the flattened object in
the brain was to be identified), as well as microscopic slides of
tissue removed from the President's wounds (these can identify
whether a wound is one of entrance or exit), but that these items,
which have never been studied, were denied him.
Wecht told Graham that he intended to write to Mr. Marshall
asking him to lay all the questions to rest by allowing him to again
inspect the materials "plus the brain and microscopic slides of the
wounds, with a team of experts, including a radiologist, a
neurosurgeon, a firearms expert, a criminalist and an examiner of
questioned documents."
Graham also interviewed Marshall who denied knowledge of the
brain or other objects not in the archives. He said that "They have
no bearing on who killed the President." He deplored Dr. Wecht's
"chasing after parts of the President's body because he hasn't found
any evidence that anything else was wrong." He termed the probing
"offensive," and said "It is a terrible thing to do to that family."
Graham's story ran in the "Sunday New York Times" on August 27 on
page 1. While the article betrayed a degree of slanting (e.g.,
"While [Dr. Wecht] was here last week, he was provided
transportation by the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, a
Washington-based organization that includes District Attorney Jim
Garrison of New Orleans"), Graham nevertheless gave a very factual
recounting of his interview with Dr. Wecht.
Graham also did considerable background research and conducted a
number of secondary interviews in an effort to trace the history of
the missing brain. What will transpire when Dr. Wecht issues his
technical report detailing his findings, and whether Fred Graham
follows up on Dr. Wecht's request of Marshall that a second panel
including Dr. Wecht and other experts be allowed to now conduct a
thorough examination of *all* the material remains to be seen.
Marshall has so far ignored the request.
The Times and the King Case
On March 10. 1969 the official curtain closed on the
assassination of Martin Luther King. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty
to a technical plea of murder "as explained to you by your lawyers,"
and was sentenced to 99 years in prison (Ray has always maintained
that he killed no one). Thus the State of Tennessee, by an
arrangement that had the advance blessings of the Federal
Government, dispensed with the formality of a trial for the accused
assassin of Dr. King.
The next day a scathing editorial in the "Times" entitled
"Tongue-Tied Justice," denounced the proceedings, calling "the
aborted trial of James Earl Ray" a "mockery of justice" and "a
shocking breach of faith with the American people." The "Times"
demanded to know, "Was there a conspiracy to kill Dr. King and who
was in it?" They demanded the convening of formal legal
proceedings, by the Federal Government if not the State.
But, for all its editorial eloquence the "Times" record on the
King case once the "official" verdict was in would be no better than
it had been in the John F. Kennedy case (prior to the Ray trial the
"Times" reporting, particularly that of Martin Waldron, was
excellent). Ray's efforts to obtain a new trial and his contention
that he had been pressured into his plea were, and continue to be,
almost completely blacked-out by the "Times."
March 1971 brought a challenge to the "official" contention that
Ray had killed Dr. King and that there had been no conspiracy. The
challenge was a new book by Harold Weisberg, "Frame-Up: The Martin
Luther King/James Earl Ray Case."
"Frame-Up" was the culmination of more than two years of
investigation, legal action, and research. Much of his evidence
Weisberg obtained when he successfully sued the Justice Department
for access to the suppressed James Earl Ray extradition file. The
suit resulted in a rare Summary Judgment against the Justice
Department (not news fit to print to the "Times"), and the release
of official documents which were exculpatory of Ray.
Thus Weisberg revealed that ballistics tests which failed to link
Ray's rifle with the crime were misrepresented by the prosecution in
the formal narration, implying the opposite by substituting the word
"consistent," a meaningless word in ballistics terminology.
The alleged shot from the bathroom window would have required a
contortionist, and tangible evidence suggested that the shot had
come from elsewhere. Numerous contradictions and conflict impeached
the testimony of the only alleged witness placing Ray at the scene.
Ray left no prints in the bathroom, or in another room where he
was alleged to have rearranged furniture, or in the car, he
allegedly drove 400 miles after the slaying, or on parts of the
rifle he would have had to handle in order to fire it.
Persuasive evidence suggested that a bundle conveniently left
behind in a doorway near the rooming house and which contained the
alleged assassination rifle and several of Ray's personal effects,
had actually been planted on the scene by someone other than Ray.
Much more in "Frame-Up" pointed toward a conspiracy in which Ray had
served the role of "patsy."
The "Times" found no news fit to print in "Frame- Up," though
even Fred Graham had called Weisberg a "painstaking investigator,"
and "Times" reporter Peter Kihss had written lengthy and favorable
articles about two of his previous books.[48]
"Frame-Up" was enthusiastically received at first. "Publishers'
Weekly" said: "This review can barely suggest the detailed number
of Weisberg's charges, speculations, freshly documented evidence and
revelations about the King murder. In two areas he is pure TNT:
his attack on Ray's lawyer, Percy Foreman . . . and his sensational
head-on assault on J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI and the government
itself for what he claims was the suppressing of official evidence
indicating Ray was not alone in the King assassination. . . .
Weisberg has brought forth a blistering book."[49]
"Saturday Review" said: "Evidence that Ray fired the fatal shot.
There is none. . . . The reek of conspiracy is on everything.
Weisberg is an indefatigable researcher . . . he has pursued the
facts. . . . And they are facts that lay claim to the conscience of
America."[50]
"The Chicago Sun Times" said: "Weisberg has dug up much
material, some of it properly designated as suppressed, that must
give any reasonable and unprejudiced person pause."[51]
The "Times" of London in a news story on "Frame-Up" called
Weisberg "one of that small but impassioned group of authorities on
recent American political assassinations . . . "Frame-Up" is a
detailed analysis of the entire process of Mr. Ray's arrest and
trial. . . . There is remarkably little evidence to connect Ray
with the shot that killed Dr. King."[52]
"Frame-Up" was reviewed in "The New York Times Book Review" on
May 2, 1971 by John Kaplan. The review began: "The silly season
apparently is over so far as the critics of the Warren Commission
are concerned. . . . Now Harold Weisberg . . . hopes to repeat the
triumph of his Whitewash series with "Frame-Up. . . . Mr.
Weisberg's theory is that James Earl Ray was merely a decoy, part of
a conspiracy, apparently . . . his evidence is exiguous at best."
The review continued: "Mr. Weisberg's grasp of law is, to say
the least, somewhat shaky (he is described elsewhere as a chicken
farmer). . . . Whether or not Ray fired the fatal bullet or merely
acted as a decoy does not influence the propriety of his guilty
plea. In either case, he would be a murderer. . . . A review such
as this in which nothing favorable is said obviously prompts
questions as to why one might wish to read or, for that matter, to
devote newspaper review space to the book. . . . Finally, one might
ask if "Frame-Up" tells us anything significant about the Martin
Luther King assassination. Regrettably, the answer is no. . . ."
Kaplan's review was nothing short of a personal attack upon
Harold Weisberg which totally ignored the contents of "Frame-Up,"
and falsely implied that "newspaper stories" were the basis of his
"exiguous" evidence.
An article on the front page of "The Wall Street Journal," "How
Book Reviews Make or Break Books--or Have No Impact," described "The
New York Times Book Review" as "generally considered the most
prestigious and influential review medium."[53] It described how a
particularly poor review there can discourage further reviews and
cut off bookstore orders. "Frame-Up" received no further reviews,
and for all practical purposes the book was soon dead.
The "Times" capsule biography of the reviewer said that "John
Kaplan teaches at Stanford Law School and is author of "Marijuana:
The New Prohibition." It was inadequate, to say the least.
From 1957 to 1961 Kaplan served the Justice Department (against
which Weisberg obtained the Summary Judgment not mentioned in the
"Times" review), first as a lawyer with the Criminal Division, then
as a special prosecutor in Chicago, and finally as an Assistant U.S.
Attorney in San Francisco.
He wrote an article, "The Assassins," which appeared in the
Spring 1967 "American Scholar." The assassins John Kaplan was
talking about were the critics of the "Warren Report" whom he
characterized as "revisionists," "perverse," and "silly." He was
also critical of "Life"'s call for a new investigation and the
"Times" call for answers to unanswered questions. These, according
to Kaplan, "contributed relatively little in the way of
enlightenment."[54]
In its original form "The Assassins" was considered so libelous
by the legal counsel of "The American Scholar" that the latter
refused to publish it until Kaplan reluctantly agreed to revise
it.[55] Kaplan's most recent venture, published the same week as
his review of "Frame-Up," was an article written for the U.S.
Information Agency (the *official* propaganda arm of the Government)
entitled "The Case of Angela Davis: The Processes of American
Justice."[56]
John Leonard, now editor of "The New York Times Book Review,"
told me that he had been totally unaware of Kaplan's background. He
had received a letter from Mr. Weisberg, and its contents distressed
him. Leonard told me that "another editor" had assigned the book,
but he implied that the matter would be rectified on the letters
page.[57] It was John Leonard, then a daily reviewer, whose review
of "A Heritage of Stone" had been edited because it was "excessively
editorial."
Weisberg's letter received no reply, nor did a subsequent one
addressed directly to Leonard seeking some acknowledgment to the
first, "if only to record that you did not consciously assign this
review to a man so saddled with irreconcilable conflicts."
On May 29 the "Times Book Review" published but one letter
dealing with the Kaplan review--that a strongly worded denial of a
footnote unrelated to the Ray case in which Weisberg said, in the
context of discussing press coverage, that in 1966 the book reviewer
of the "Washington Post" had been ordered not to review "Whitewash"
after he read it and decided on a favorable review. Kaplan chose to
quote it out of context as an example of how, in Kaplan's words,
Weisberg thought he was being picked on.
Geoffrey Wolff, who had been Book Review Editor of the
"Washington Post" in 1966, vociferously denied the footnote in a
letter which the "Times," in total disregard of publishing ethics,
chose to publish without sending Weisberg a copy so that he could
respond. Weisberg was not permitted to quote his dated
contemporaneous notes of his meetings with Wolff and a letter he had
written Wolff in August 1966, and readers of the "Times" were given
only Wolff's version of what had occurred, leaving them with the
impression that there was only one version.
Thus the "Times" assigned a biased reviewer who was permitted to
misrepresent "Frame-Up"'s contents and to quote a tangential
footnote completely out of context as an exercise in personal
invective against Weisberg. This was followed by the publication of
only one letter which compounded the defamation of the Kaplan
review.
This train of events suggests that the "Times" never intended
anything less than to kill "Frame-Up" and discredit Weisberg.
Following the appearance of Wolff's letter, John Leonard told me
that it had been published at that time because it had been set in
type while others had not been, but that a "full page round-up" of
letters dealing with the Kaplan review would be published "in about
three weeks."[58]
Weisberg's letter responding to the published Wolff letter
received no reply from the "Times" and was never published. The
full page round-up never appeared. Instead on August 29, 17 weeks
after the Kaplan review and 12 weeks after the publication of the
Wolff letter--after "Frame-Up" was already dead--Weisberg's original
letter (which Leonard told me he had just received when I spoke to
him on May 5) was published in the "Times Book Review" along with a
self-serving reply by Kaplan, who was permitted the traditional
right of reply that the "Times" had previously denied Weisberg.
Weisberg wrote John Leonard: "I think you owe me . . . more than
this too late, too little, too dishonest feebleness. . . . You have
my work, which stands, as it must, alone. You have my detailed and
lengthy letters, which remain undenied by anyone, unanswered by you.
You have enough to show that the "Times" and John Leonard will at
least make an effort to be decent and honorable. Will you?"
For the first time Weisberg received a reply. Leonard's response
read in full: "Apparently everyone in the country is without honor
except you. I don't think we have anything useful to say to one
another."[59]
The Times and the RFK Case
If many were unsatisfied with the "official" facts about the
assassination of President Kennedy and Dr. King, there seemed little
reason to doubt that Senator Robert F. Kennedy had fallen victim to
the deranged act of a single sick individual--until the publication
of Robert Blair Kaiser's "R.F.K. Must Die!"
Kaiser is an established and respected reporter and a former
correspondent for "Time" magazine. His previous reporting had won
him a Pulitzer Prize nomination and an Overseas Press Club Award for
the best magazine reporting in foreign affairs.
He signed on with the Sirhan defense team as an investigator. In
the course of his studies and investigations he became the chief
repository of knowledge in the case and the bridge between the
defense attorneys and the psychiatrists probing the motivations of
Sirhan Sirhan. Kaiser was to spend close to 200 hours with Sirhan,
and that exposure together with his researches were to convince him
that there had been a conspiracy.
Kaiser was unimpressed with the investigations turned in by the
Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI He felt that they were
predisposed to the conclusion that no conspiracy existed, and they
were consequently unwilling to pursue leads in that direction.
Thus when the "girl in the polka-dot dress" seen with Sirhan just
before the assassination was not turned up, the authorities
concluded that she did not exist despite overwhelming evidence to
the contrary. Nor was a zealous effort made to locate or thoroughly
investigate certain acquaintances of Sirhan who could not be
regarded as above suspicion.
Kaiser became perplexed by Sirhan's notebooks in which he had
often repeatedly written his name, and in which several pages bore
the similarly repeated inscription "RFK must die," always
accompanied by the phrase "Please pay to the order of Sirhan."
Sirhan had no recollection of these writings, nor did he recall
firing at Senator Kennedy.
On the night of the assassination Sirhan had behaved oddly. He
was observed staring fixedly at a teletype machine two hours before
the assassination, and he did not respond when addressed by the
teletype operator. Several bystanders could not loosen the vice-
like grip or sway the seemingly frozen arm of Sirhan when he began
firing. After the shooting it was reported that his eyes were
dilated, and he was described as extremely detached during the all-
night police interrogation. In the morning he was found shivering
in his cell.
Dr. Bernard L. Diamond. the chief psychiatrist for the defense,
decided upon the use of hypnosis on Sirhan. His subject proved so
susceptible that Diamond concluded that Sirhan had likely been
frequently hypnotized before. Under hypnosis Sirhan proved adept at
the same type of automatic writing that appeared in his notebooks.
Given a pen and paper he filled an entire page with his name,
continuing to write even at the end of the page. Instructed to
write about Robert Kennedy he wrote "RFK must die" repeatedly until
told to stop. Under hypnosis Sirhan recalled his previous notebook
entries which had been made in a trance-like state induced by
mirrors in his bedroom.
The hallways of the Ambassador Hotel were also lined with
mirrors. Dr. Diamond programmed Sirhan to climb the bars of his
cell like a monkey, but to retain no memory of the instructions.
Upon awakening Sirhan climbed the bars of his cell "for exercise."
Hypnosis produced an interesting side-effect on Sirhan. Upon
emerging from a hypnotic state he would suffer chills--just as he
had the morning after the assassination.
Dr. Diamond became convinced that Sirhan had acted in a
dissociated state, unconscious of his actions, the night he
allegedly killed Senator Kennedy. He concluded that Sirhan had
programmed himself like a robot. Kaiser reached a slightly
different conclusion. If Sirhan had programmed himself, he
reasoned, why did he retain no recollection of the programming or
the shooting. Furthermore, when asked under hypnosis if others had
been involved, Sirhan would go into a deeper trance in which he
could not reply or he would block--hesitating for a long period
before giving a negative reply.
Kaiser's research turned up several case-histories in which a
suggestible individual had actually been programmed by a skilled
hypnotist to perform illegal acts with no recollection of either the
deed or the programming, including a relatively recent case in
Europe in which a man convicted of murder was later acquitted when a
suspicious psychiatrist succeeded in deprogramming him with the
result that the programmer was convicted in his stead. Kaiser felt
that Sirhan, too, had been programmed and his memory blocked by some
kind of blocking mechanism.
"R.F.K Must Die!", which was also not "news fit to print" was
reviewed in "The New York Times Book Review" on November 15, 1970 by
Dr. Thomas S. Szasz. Kaiser was described as a "conscientious and
competent reporter," but the review totally ignored the contents of
the book, the reviewer preferring to expound upon his own philosophy
that it is "absurd" to judge Sirhan's act in any context other than
the fact that he had committed the act, because in courtroom
psychiatry "facts are constructed to fit theories."
Dr. Szasz also expounded upon his faith in capital punishment as
a deterrent to crime and upon several other irrelevancies. Only one
sentence of the review addressed Kaiser's premise: "And Kaiser
uncritically accepts Diamond's theory of the assassination `that
Sirhan had--by his automatic writing--programmed himself exactly
like a computer is programmed by its magnetic tape . . . for the
coming assassination.'"
Dr. Szasz completely misrepresented the thesis of the book he was
reviewing, for Kaiser explicitly disagreed with Dr. Diamond. Dr.
Szasz' review gave no hint that Kaiser had postulated a conspiracy.
Robert Kaiser wrote me: "My narrative of the facts, most of which
have been hidden from the public, cried out for a reopening of the
case by the authorities. That was news and Dr. Szasz ignored
it."[60]
Assigning Dr. Thomas Szasz to review "R.F.K. Must Die!" was like
assigning Martha Mitchell to review Senator Fulbright's "The
Arrogance of Power." Kaiser's book was largely a psychiatric study
of Sirhan and a narrative of the psychiatric nature of the defense
strategy (Sirhan had definite paranoid-schizophrenic tendencies).
Dr. Szasz is generally regarded as the most controversial figure
in the psychiatric profession, for he contends that mental illness
is a myth, and he is irrevocably opposed to the use of psychiatry in
the courtroom. His views are so controversial that "The New York
Times Magazine" devoted an entire article to them.[61] Dr. Szasz'
philosophy regarding courtroom psychiatry and mental illness
precluded in advance an objective review.
The relationship existing between Dr. Szasz and Dr. Diamond (who
Kaiser describes as "the only hero in my book"[62]), moreover,
should have further disqualified Dr. Szasz, for their views
diametrically oppose one another, and the two men have faced each
other in public debate.
Dr. Diamond is a leading expert on and advocate of the legal
concept known as "diminished capacity," a psychiatric defense. In
the October 1964 "California Law Review" Dr. Diamond reviewed one of
Dr. Szasz' books. A quote of the opening lines of that review
illustrates sufficiently well the enmity existing between the two:
"`Law, Liberty and Psychiatry' is an irresponsible,
reprehensible, and dangerous book. It is irresponsible and
reprehensible because the author must surely know better. It is a
dangerous book because its author is clever, brilliant and
articulate--the book reads well and could be most convincing to the
intelligent, but uncritical reader."
Kaiser cogently summed up the Szasz review: "An honest review of
my book, pro or con, one that would have dealt with the facts I
revealed and the issues I raised, could have been a valuable service
to the large reading public that depends on the "Times Book Review."
From a purely personal viewpoint, it made the difference for me;
instead of being a bestseller, my book was only a modest success--
not because the reviewer made a successful attack on my thesis, but
because he simply ignored it."[63]
One of the confusing facts in the Robert Kennedy case is that the
fatal bullet entered behind the left ear and was fired from only
about an inch away, a fact that was attested to by the massive
powder burns the weapon produced around the wound. Sirhan was
several feet in front of Senator Kennedy. It was generally assumed
that Kennedy had fallen in Sirhan's direction, receiving the wound
as he fell, but events of the past summer have challenged this
theory.
On May 28, 1971 Los Angeles attorney Barbara Warner Blehr
challenged the qualifications of DeWayne Wolfer, acting head of the
LAPD Crime Lab, in an effort to block his permanent appointment.
Her challenge included declarations by three ballistics experts
alleging that Wolfer had violated the four precepts of firearms
identification when he testified at Sirhan's trial that Sirhan's gun
and no other was involved in the shooting of Kennedy and two other
persons on the scene.
Ms. Blehr charged that Wolfer's testimony established that three
bullets introduced in evidence were fired *not* from Sirhan's gun
but from a second similar gun which, through evidence in the case
on June 6, 1968 "was reportedly destroyed by the LAPD . . . in July,
1968." She charged that a second person with a gun similar to
Sirhan's had also fired shots at Senator Kennedy.
Ms. Blehr's charges resulted in the convening of a grand jury
which ultimately found that serious questions concerning the
integrity of exhibits in the Sirhan case were raised as a result of
handling of the evidence by unauthorized persons while in the
custody of the Los Angeles County Clerk's office. District Attorney
Busch claimed that the confusion was the result of a clerical error
made in labeling an envelope containing three bullets test-fired
from Sirhan's gun by Wolfer. He claimed that Ms. Blehr's charges
also contained serious errors, but he did not specify them.
Meanwhile there still seems to be a strong question as to whether
the ballistics markings on all of the bullets match up. Retired
criminologist William Harper viewed two of the bullets, one taken
from a second victim and the other removed from Kennedy's neck. He
stated that he could find "no individual characteristics in common
between these two bullets."
"The Los Angeles Times" has given each of these developments
large play, and a summary article on August 8, 1971 by "L.A. Times"
staff writer Dave Smith ran on page 1 and continued onto pages 8, 9
and 10, taking up approximately 125 column inches. By the same
token these developments have been almost totally blacked-out by
"The New York Times." Then National Editor, Gene Roberts, told me
that he could not explain why these developments had received so
little coverage, claiming ignorance of them--a situation for which
he acknowledged there was little excuse. He suggested that I
contact Wallace Turner, a reporter with the Los Angeles bureau whom
Roberts said was familiar with the Robert Kennedy case.[64]
I wrote instead to the L.A. bureau chief, Steven V. Roberts,
suggesting that a policy decision was responsible for the blackout.
He replied that "the questions were of the most tentative and flimsy
character" which "just did not merit doing a full-scale
investigation." Roberts wrote that he had told New York (meaning
the National desk) "to use whatever they wanted that was run by the
wire services, but that I was not going to do anything myself. . .
."[65]
I wrote again asking why these events were not news simply
because the "Times" had not investigated them, and also asking why
the L.A. Bureau had reported on Sirhan's efforts to block
publication of "R.F.K. Must Die!", but saw nothing newsworthy in
the book or its revelations when it was published. He replied: "As
I told you the first time, we have to set priorities here. We can
report only a small percentage of the many stories that come our way
every day. I have decided that the controversy over the Sirhan
bullets is not substantial enough to warrant my time, when there are
so many other things to worry about. I appreciate your concern, but
I think that's about all I have to say on the matter."[66]
One must wonder, should the controversy over the Sirhan bullets
prove substantial after all, how the "Times" will explain to its
readers that other priorities demanded that previous developments
were not "news fit to print."
Only "The New York Times" can answer why they have for nine years
maintained a consistent policy of literary assassination of
literature and deliberate management of news suggesting that three
of the greatest crimes of the 20th century may, despite "official"
findings to the contrary, be yet unsolved.
But the unassailable fact is that in the process they have acted
as little less than an unofficial propaganda arm of the Government
which has maintained so staunchly--and in the face of all evidence
to the contrary, great and trivial--that assassinations in the
United States are inevitably the work of lone demented madmen.
Justice Hugo Black in his concurring opinion in the Supreme Court
decision favoring "The New York Times" in the case of the Pentagon
Papers said, "Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively
expose deception in government. And paramount among the
responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of
the Government from deceiving the people. . . ."
Far from preventing deception in the case of political
assassinations, the "Times" has practiced it, and in the process
defrauded its readers and violated every ethic of professional and
objective journalism.
The greatest tragedy is that the "Times" indeed is America's
newspaper of record. As was demonstrated with the Pentagon Papers
it wields the power to command international headlines. Along with
"The Washington Post" it is read daily by statesmen and bureaucrats
in the nation's capitol. It appears in every foreign capitol and in
11,464 cities around the world.[67]
Yet it seems all too evident that the "news fit to print" is
often little more than propaganda reflecting the biases and
preconceptions of the Publisher and editors of "The New York Times."
1. Gay Talese, "The Kingdom and The Power," Bantam Books, NY, 1970, p.547
2. "New York Times," April 7, 1961, p.2
3. Turner Catledge, "My Life and the Times," Harper & Row, NY, 1971, p.288
4. Talese, op. cit., p.148
5. "The Kennedy Assassination and the American Public--Social
Communication In Crisis," edited by Bradley S. Greenberg & Edwin B.
Parker, Stanford University Press, Stanford, Cal., pp.37-45
6. "New York Times," November 25, 1963, p.1
7. "New York Times," November 25, 1963, p.10
8. "New York Times," November 26, 1963, p.15; November 25, 1963, p.9
9. Edward J. Epstein, "Inquest," Bantam Books, NY, 1966, p.19
10. "New York Times," March 30, 1964, p.26
11. "New York Times," September 28, 1964, p.1
12. "New York Times," September 28, 1964, p.28
13. "New York Times," September 29, 1964, p.42
14. "New York Times," September 28, 1964, p.28
15. "New York Times," October 18, 1964, VII:8
16. "New York Times," January 10, 1969, Ed. "UFO's And All That"
17. "New York Times," November 25, 1964, p.36
18. Epstein, op. cit., p.50
19. "Book Week," July 24, 1966, p.1
20. "New York Times," July 24, 1966, p.25
21. "New York Post," March 6, 1967, p.4
22. Letter from Peter Kihss to Harold Weisberg--dated June 7, 1966
23. "New York Times," September 25, 1966, IV:10
24. "New York Times," November 17, 1966, p.46
25. "Newsweek," December 12, 1966, p.20
26. Telephone interview with Gene Roberts--October 18, 1971
27. Telephone interview with Gene Roberts--September 29, 1971
28. Letter from George Palmer to Mr. Richard Levine--dated March 8, 1971
29. Letter from George Palmer to the author--dated August 26, 1971
30. Letter from Walter Sullivan to Bernard Fensterwald, Jr.--dated March
19, 1970
31. "New York Times," May 21, 1967, VII:48
32. "Playboy," February, 1968, pp.16-18
33. Sylvia Meagher, "Accessories After The Fact," Bobbs-Merrill, NY,
1967, back jacket
34. Ibid
35. Josiah Thompson, "Six Seconds In Dallas," Bernard Geiss Ass., NY,
1967, p.293
36. "C.B.S. News Inquiry--The Warren Report," June 25-28, 1967, part II,
p.15 of transcript.
37. Epstein, op. cit., p.40
38. The two reviews were first discovered by the Washington based
Committee to Investigate Assassinations which published them in its
newsletter.
39. Letter from George Palmer to the author--dated June 22, 1971
40. Letter from George Palmer to Mr. Howard Roffman, Phil., PA, July 22,
1971
41. "New York Times," November 27, 1963, p.36
42. "New York Times," January 17, 1969, p.1
43. Letter from Fred Graham to Sylvia Meagher--dated January 26, 1969
44. "New York Times," February 13, 1969, p.13
45. "New York Times," February 18, 1969, p.29
46. Interview of Dr. Lattimer by Long John Nebel--WNBC radio, Jan. 19, 1972
47. "The Realist," February 1967, "The Murder of Malcolm X," by Eric
Norden, p. 18
48. "New York Times," December 8, 1966, p.40; July 9, 1967, p.51
49. "Publishers' Weekly," February 1, 1971
50. "Saturday Review," April 10, 1971
51. "Chicago Sun Times," April 4, 1971
52. "Times" of London, June 5, 1971, p.4
53. "The Wall Street Journal," June 9, 1971, p.1
54. "American Scholar," Spring 1967, p.302
55. Telephone conversation with Mary Moore Maloney, Man. Ed. of "The
American Scholar"--August 18, 1971
56. USIA Byliner--L-5/71 -F- 111 May, 71 IPS/PO/OISETH--May 5&6, 1971
57. Telephone conversation with John Leonard--May 5, 1971
58. Telephone conversation with John Leonard--June 1, 1971
59. Letter from John Leonard to Harold Weisberg--dated Sept. 9, 1971
60. Letter from Robert Kaiser to the author--dated August 9, 1971
61. "New York Times Magazine," October 3, 1971, "Normality Is A Square
Circle or a Four Sided Triangle," by Maggie Scarf
62. Letter from Robert Kaiser, op. cit.
63. Ibid
64. Telephone interview with Gene Roberts--Sept. 29, 1971
65. Letter From Steven V. Roberts to the author--dated Dec. 29, 1971
66. Letters from Steven V. Roberts to the author--dated Jan. 21, 1972
67. Talese, op. cit., p.89
--
daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.