Journalists and the Assassination of JFK

[Robin Ramsay]

In the introduction to your book, Politics & Paranoia, you explain how you became involved in investigating conspiracy theories while reading the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission report in 1976/77 at the University of Hull library. You also acknowledge the importance of writers such as Carl Oglesby and Peter Dale Scott.

On page 12 you point out that you also read Richard Hofstadter’s article “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” where he linked an interest in “conspiracy theories with paranoia and with the loony radical Right”. You go on to say: “Hofstader’s influential and widely discussed essay reinforced existing academic and intellectual prejudices which allotted to an interest in conspiracy theories or actual conspiracies the intellectual status of – say – spiritualism: of interest only to the stupid, the uneducated or the ill. For ‘serious’ people – academics, journalists, politicians – large areas of political inquiry have been contaminated ever since by an association with conspiracy theories.”

There is no doubt that the John Birch Society theory that President Eisenhower was part of the global communist conspiracy and the various right-wing theories about a Jewish conspiracy has definitely caused problems for those who want to investigate corruption by governments and national intelligence organizations. However, I suspect, the problem goes much deeper than that. One of the greatest battles with the ruling elites is over the meaning of language.

On 25th September 1951, the novelist and political activist, Upton Sinclair, wrote a letter to Norman Thomas, the head of the American Socialist Party: “The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie.” The same thing has happened in the UK under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair carried on the good work when he was in power. "Socialism" has become a word that no politician wants to use.

I noticed that when Norman Baker was interviewed by the BBC about his book on the death of David Kelly, he was repeatedly referred to as a “conspiracy theorist”. History is of course full of examples of how powerful groups have conspired to make sure that they can continue to rule. However, once the word “conspiracy theorist” is used, it takes a brave person to take seriously what the person is saying.

Can you think of any way that we can overcome this “language” problem?

Interesting question, John. The 'language problem' arises because if one talks of conspiracy except in the context of a criminal conspiracy, willy-nilly one evokes conspiracy theories, which, in turn evokes David Icke, lizards, the X-Files et al. (Fifty years ago it evoked the John Birch Society, or the various fringe neo-nazi groups still clinging to the Jewish conspiracy theory.) Anthony Summers made the essential distinction years ago saying that he wasn't interested in conspiracy theories but was interested in theories about conspiracies. A goodly part of my book of public talks, Politics and Paranoia (Picnic Publishing, 2008), is various attempts to make and elaborate this distinction, to try and persuade various audiences that they should resist the automatic association between conspiracy and conspiracy theories.

This language problem is particularly acute when one is dealing with academics and the higher media. For virtually all of them the association of conspiracy with all manner of idiocies is automatic and armour-plated. This seems to serve as a defence mechanism for both groups who use it bat away information and views which conflict with what they were taught at university in the academic study of politics and history. Having experienced this reaction many times in the last quarter of a century, I have acquired a profound respect for the human brain's inability to change its belief systems in any major way, even among - perhaps especially among - those who are professionally employed to evaluate political and historical data. If I was in charge of the world pharmacological research effort I would set it to producing something which enables people to overcome that initial defence mechanism which irrationally sorts data into the 'This can't be true/this can be true' categories.

As to what we do about this - who knows? To my knowledge no-one has come up with a form or words which conveys conspiracy without evoking the dreaded conspiracy theorist label. I guess we just have to keep grinding away doing what our academic and media betters are supposed to be doing: trying to understand the nature of historical reality. But here is the same problem looked at from another angle. Are the higher media and academics actually engaged in trying to understand reality? All too often they are doing other things. Twenty years ago or so, when I first encountered members of the higher media, having assumed they were engaged, like me, in what we might naively call the pursuit of truth, I discovered that this simply wasn't true. They were engaged in: pursuing careers, getting a story before their rivals, fiddling expenses, paying their mortgages, planning their holidays, paying off scores - and mostly simply doing a job, which was to produce something their editors would approve of for publication or broadcast and which didn't cost too much. The 'pursuit of the truth' had nothing to do with it. As I say on one of the talks in my book, journalists are intensely suspicious of people they perceive as 'having an agenda' - especially when that agenda is 'the pursuit of the truth'. Since they are rarely engaged in this they are suspicious of people of who present themselves as so doing, presuming that, like them, they are engaged in other, secondary activities and are thus hypocrites or self-deluded in talking about 'the truth'. As far as I can tell this situation has only got a lot worse in the last twenty years (not that I have much contact with the higher media any more.)

Edited June 26, 2008 by Robin Ramsay

[John Simkin]

Are the higher media and academics actually engaged in trying to understand reality? All too often they are doing other things. Twenty years ago or so, when I first encountered members of the higher media, having assumed they were engaged, like me, in what we might naively call the pursuit of truth, I discovered that this simply wasn't true. They were engaged in: pursuing careers, getting a story before their rivals, fiddling expenses, paying their mortgages, planning their holidays, paying off scores - and mostly simply doing a job, which was to produce something their editors would approve of for publication or broadcast and which didn't cost too much. The 'pursuit of the truth' had nothing to do with it. As I say on one of the talks in my book, journalists are intensely suspicious of people they perceive as 'having an agenda' - especially when that agenda is 'the pursuit of the truth'.

I used to work for the Guardian and managed to build up a lot of contacts with the newspaper. I have provided individual investigative journalists with a lot of information that have appeared in released documents about CIA conspiracies that date back to the 1950s. However, the stories were never written, or at least, they never made the newspaper.

I also thought I had arranged for David Talbot’s “Brothers” to be serialized. At the time they appeared interested in the project, including an interview with David, because of his importance in the growth of New Media. However, when they discovered it was a “conspiracy” book, they dropped the idea. They used the silly excuse that it was not right to be seen to be promoting the work of a fellow journalist. They had forgotten that this was the original reason why they were interested in the book and interview.

Yet, the Guardian is fairly interested in investigating current conspiracies. However, once it becomes an historical event, they lose interest in the story. It is in fact worse than that, they become involved in the cover-up once new information surfaces.

Any ideas on why this is?

[Guest David Guyatt]

We should also bear in mind that the MSM are businesses and that they therefore tend to lean philosophically with the wind than against it.

Self censure on "controversial" subjects very likely results from fear that major advertisers will pull advertisements if they are discontented with the general editorial "drift" a newspaper or media corporation is making. Since all but the publicly owned media depend for advertising revenue for their very survival, this means that major business entities are able to determine what is and what is not acceptable for a media outlet to render to the public.

The question remaining then, is whether major business corporations knowingly adopt similar policies to ensure that the media complies with their wishes. What little we know of powerful business and political pressure groups like the Bilderberg Conferences is that they do adopt such policies of control.

It almost goes without saying -- but should be stated non-the-less -- that such collective actions that are adopted by international business and the ruling elite are the result of a conspiracy.

Spiking or rubbishing an important story with murmers of "conspiracy theory" is at its heart a mechanism to bring the MSM and others into line whilst also dispersing the reality of what really goes on in smoke-filled rooms.

[Robin Ramsay]

I used to work for the Guardian and managed to build up a lot of contacts with the newspaper. I have provided individual investigative journalists with a lot of information that have appeared in released documents about CIA conspiracies that date back to the 1950s. However, the stories were never written, or at least, they never made the newspaper.

I also thought I had arranged for David Talbot’s “Brothers” to be serialized. At the time they appeared interested in the project, including an interview with David, because of his importance in the growth of New Media. However, when they discovered it was a “conspiracy” book, they dropped the idea. They used the silly excuse that it was not right to be seen to be promoting the work of a fellow journalist. They had forgotten that this was the original reason why they were interested in the book and interview.

Yet, the Guardian is fairly interested in investigating current conspiracies. However, once it becomes an historical event, they lose interest in the story. It is in fact worse than that, they become involved in the cover-up once new information surfaces.

Any ideas on why this is?

As for the behaviour of the Guardian, I would say: (1) which bit of the various semi-independent fiefdoms are we talking about? and then (2) which particular story? It is, of course, possible that the Guardian has been steered by the CIA for the last 50 years (much of the liberal-left has been). Certainly the recent editors have all been knee-jerk pro NATO, pro American. But that isn't likely. To me the Guardian looks like pretty typical 'right-on' herd behaviour. If the peer group of the various journos decrees that - say - multiculturalism is a Good Thing then other voices don't get in and counter-factual evidence is ignored. Equally, Bad Things - eg nationalism - don't get a look in. But this is where the fiefdom thing arises because the Guardian economics editor, Larry Elliot, though he wouldn't use the term, is de facto an economic nationalist. But this is guesswork on my part. I've only been in the Guardian office twice and no current Guardian journalists subscribes to the magazine.

[Robert Howard]

I used to work for the Guardian and managed to build up a lot of contacts with the newspaper. I have provided individual investigative journalists with a lot of information that have appeared in released documents about CIA conspiracies that date back to the 1950s. However, the stories were never written, or at least, they never made the newspaper.

I also thought I had arranged for David Talbot’s “Brothers” to be serialized. At the time they appeared interested in the project, including an interview with David, because of his importance in the growth of New Media. However, when they discovered it was a “conspiracy” book, they dropped the idea. They used the silly excuse that it was not right to be seen to be promoting the work of a fellow journalist. They had forgotten that this was the original reason why they were interested in the book and interview.

Yet, the Guardian is fairly interested in investigating current conspiracies. However, once it becomes an historical event, they lose interest in the story. It is in fact worse than that, they become involved in the cover-up once new information surfaces.

Any ideas on why this is?

As for the behaviour of the Guardian, I would say: (1) which bit of the various semi-independent fiefdoms are we talking about? and then (2) which particular story? It is, of course, possible that the Guardian has been steered by the CIA for the last 50 years (much of the liberal-left has been). Certainly the recent editors have all been knee-jerk pro NATO, pro American. But that isn't likely. To me the Guardian looks like pretty typical 'right-on' herd behaviour. If the peer group of the various journos decrees that - say - multiculturalism is a Good Thing then other voices don't get in and counter-factual evidence is ignored. Equally, Bad Things - eg nationalism - don't get a look in. But this is where the fiefdom thing arises because the Guardian economics editor, Larry Elliot, though he wouldn't use the term, is de facto an economic nationalist. But this is guesswork on my part. I've only been in the Guardian office twice and no current Guardian journalists subscribes to the magazine.

There is only one solution to the conundrum described on this thread regarding the inability of the journalistic community to give any hint of credibility to any factuality of the assassination of President Kennedy, and that is for the assassination to be definitively solved.

The infamous quote transposed regarding Communism by Churchill of a riddle wrapped up inside of a mystery hidden in an enigma, is, pardon the expression hyperbole.

The JFK Assassination is not the Mystery of the Sphinx, it was a crime that was, in most of our collective viewpoints, never fully resolved. I would point to the tremendous work that has been done regarding the exploration into the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in particular the work of William Pepper as well as the family of Dr. King in my estimation, is the closest that the three pivotal assassinations of the 1960's, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr, have come to being fully demystified, and there are parallels to the weight of evidence uncovered in that case, to the assassination of JFK, for those who remember the beginning 1963, I am not one of them, we have come light years from that era. Think about the fairly definitive body of work that has demolished the Oswald/Mexico City deception. We now know, or at least, have fairly conclusively demonstrated that there was a fragile plan, that sought to use a person impersonating Oswald visit both the Soviet and Cuban Embassies to obtain a visa to go to Cuba and perhaps on to Odessa in the Soviet Union, that after the assassination would, in the conceptualization of LBJ's ascendancy to office was supposed to have sparked a public demand to invade Cuba, this is where the assassination as a political act failed miserably.

That this has been proven, in my estimation, is a good reason not to feel a collective "we blew it," regarding the intense difficulty of fighting an official history. I would admonish, if I may be so bold members of the Forum to do what has been the successful process that has not failed, which is to approach the assassination as a combination historian/investigator.

To expound think of those persons who cannot be classified as the outer fringe, Jim Marrs, George Michael Evica, John Armstrong [at least in my estimation], Peter Dale Scott, Anthony Summers, Jefferson Morley, obviously there are others as well as the original 1960's researchers. The aforementioned are the center! The fact will probably always remain that the media will castigate anyone who differs from the "Oswald did it school," once you accept that, you have crossed a important point, which is you are seeking the truth for future generations, I would rather be labeled as a conspiracy buff that rejects the "Oswald did it" Emperor's New Clothes dialectic, than be hailed by a media that just doesen't appear to want to "get it".

Outside of the hallowed halls of Langley, there is or was, the statue with the phrase taken from the Bible which states "You will know the Truth and the Truth Will Set You Free." As an organization whose very existence is intertwined with black ops, the idea that it is written there, is as Orwellian as I can possibly imagine. And I am not so far to the left, that I would neuter the CIA, or disband it, not that I don't understand why for some the idea has its appeal.

If there is any consolation for us, it is knowing that the Europeans after 1000 years became very adept at assimilating political chicanery, maybe America will take as long, but there are people in this country whose eyes are wide upon and a considerable number of them are on this Forum.