Mary Pinchot Meyer

[Tim Gratz]

Excellent posts, John! Very interesting indeed. The circumstances certainly suggest Mary Mayer may have been murdered because she knew too much. Of course, whether we will ever be able to discover what she knew remains problematic but we all agree the investigation must continue.

[John Simkin]

Excellent posts, John!  Very interesting indeed.  The circumstances certainly suggest Mary Mayer may have been murdered because she knew too much. Of course, whether we will ever be able to discover what she knew remains problematic but we all agree the investigation must continue.

There are still several people left alive who know a great deal about this case. This includes Ben Bradlee, Antoinette Pinchot Bradlee, Anne Truitt and Cicely d’Autremont Angleton. Mary’s son, Quentin Meyer, is also still interested in finding out who murdered his mother. Peter Janney is another one worth interviewing. His father, Wistar Janney was a top CIA official who was part of the Georgetown Crowd. Peter believes the CIA murdered Mary.

[Tim Gratz]

Excellent work, John.

Someone should interview this people, for sure, while they are still alive--but in-person interviews would be by far the best!

[John Simkin]

Also in 1992, Robert Morrow claimed that just before the publication of the Warren Commission Report, Marshall Diggs requested a meeting. Diggs told Morrow that Tracy Barnes was concerned about information Mary Meyer had about the assassination of JFK. He asked Morrow to pass this information onto Cuban exile leader, Robert Kohly. When told, Kohly replied: “Tell Diggs I’ll take care of the matter.” A week later Mary Meyer was dead.

Does anyone know anything about Robert Kohly or Marshall Diggs?

Is Robert Morrow a reliable witness?

[John Simkin]

In his autobiography Cord Meyer refers to the murder of his wife. He points out that there was an ugly rumour circulating at the time that suggested he believed that his ex-wife had been murdered as part of a communist conspiracy. That it was some sort of revenge for things that he had done in the past. He denies believing this. Meyer insists that he believed the Washington police when they assured him that Mary had been murdered by a lone gunman (Raymond Crump).

Of course, this was not the real rumour that was circulating. The main rumour was that the CIA had killed Mary because of what she knew about the assassination of JFK.

It is commonly believed that James Angleton and Ben Bradlee were searching for Mary’s diary because of what she might have written about her relationship with JFK. I suspect they wanted the diary for other reasons. They feared that Mary might have speculated in her diary about who murdered JFK. It would have indeed been very inconvenient if Mary’s writings about the possible involvement of Cord Meyer and the CIA in the assassination had been read out in court. This would have provided a motive for her murder. That is why the diary had to be removed. That is why LBJ’s judge, Howard Corcoran, ruled that the defending attorney could not mention Mary’s private life in court.

[Pat Speer]

Of course, this was not the real rumour that was circulating. The main rumour was that the CIA had killed Mary because of what she knew about the assassination of JFK.

It is commonly believed that James Angleton and Ben Bradlee were searching for Mary’s diary because of what she might have written about her relationship with JFK.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

John, I think you're drifting down conspiracy lane more than the evidence supports. There were very few who knew of Mary and Jack's relationship, thus there were no rumors at the time. The commie killer rumors however make perfect sense, considering the paranoid climate of the times.

You also miss that both Bradlee and Angleton were looking for the diary at the urging of their wives, who were close to Mary and were worried that her relationship with JFK would damage Mary's reputation. Bradlee was JFK's friend; he wrote a book about him, Conversations With Kennedy, which depicts Kennedy in a good light for the most part. It's a bit out there to believe he would participate in the cover-up of his friend's and/or his sister-in-law's murder.

If Bradlee was involved in trying to cover-up Mary Meyer's murder, he wouldn't have written about the incident with Angleton at the studio in his memoirs. Without his confirmation, the Mary Meyer diary story would have died the rapid and well-deserved death of most stories first published in the National Enquirer.

[John Simkin]

John, I think you're drifting down conspiracy lane more than the evidence supports. There were very few who knew of Mary and Jack's relationship, thus there were no rumors at the time.  The commie killer rumors however make perfect sense, considering the paranoid climate of the times. 

It is untrue that very few people knew about JFK’s affair with Mary Meyer. You have to remember that in January, 1963, Philip Graham told a convention of journalists in Phoenix about the affair. JFK was able to stop any newspaper from publishing the story. JFK attempted to break-off the relationship but the White House logs show that by the late summer they are back in contact. They probably feel more secure after Graham commited suicide in August 1963.

It was common knowledge amongst the Georgetown crowd (a group that included a large number of journalists) that Mary was having an affair with JFK. Nina Burleigh discovered this while carrying out interviews for her book A Very Private Woman. Burleigh even goes on to say that during the trial, that every white person in the courtroom, bar one (Alfred Hantman) knew about the affair.

You also miss that both Bradlee and Angleton were looking for the diary at the urging of their wives, who were close to Mary and were worried that her relationship with JFK would damage Mary's reputation.  Bradlee was JFK's friend; he wrote a book about him, Conversations With Kennedy, which depicts Kennedy in a good light for the most part.  It's a bit out there to believe he would participate in the cover-up of his friend's and/or his sister-in-law's murder.

If Bradlee and Angleton were the only ones who knew about them searching for the diary it might well have remained a secret. The problem was that others knew about it from the beginning.

James and Anne Truitt were initially the only ones who knew about the diary. As Angleton had Mary’s house bugged he might also have known about the diary. James and Anne Truitt were in Japan at the time of the murder. (James Truitt had been sent by Bradlee to run the Washington Post Bureau in Tokyo). The Truitts found out about the murder on the day it happened (probably via one of Mary’s friends). Anne then phones Antoinette Bradlee (Mary’s sister and Ben’s wife) and asks her to get Mary’s diary. Mary had asked Anne to do this before her death.

Maybe she was worried about her reputation. However, I doubt this. She seemed very open about her attitude towards sex. A stronger reason was she was worried that her life was in danger. This of course is supported by what Timothy Leary has to say about her visits and phone calls after JFK’s. If she is murdered, then her thought on the JFK assassination are correct. She wants this to enter the public domain.

Antoinette then tells Ben about the phone call. They go to her home together. When they arrive they find Angleton searching for the diary. He claims that Anne had phoned him to get the diary. This is highly unlikely. Especially if Mary had confided with Anne and James Truitt about the real reasons she wanted the diary saved from destruction.

If Bradlee was involved in trying to cover-up Mary Meyer's murder, he wouldn't have written about the incident with Angleton at the studio in his memoirs.  Without his confirmation, the Mary Meyer diary story would have died the rapid and well-deserved death of most stories first published in the National Enquirer.

Bradlee's memoirs were published in 1995. The story of Bradlee and Angleton searching for the diary became public in March, 1976. This was as a result of James Truitt giving an interview to the National Enquirer. Truitt told the newspaper that Meyer was having an affair with John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated. He also claimed that Meyer had told his wife, Ann Truitt, that she was keeping an account of this relationship in her diary. Meyer asked Truitt to take possession of a private diary "if anything ever happened to me".

It was only at this point that Bradlee admitted that he had searched for the diary (he lied about this incident when he gave evidence at Crump's trial). James Truitt, who had divorced Anne by this stage, knew a great deal about this case. He was very close to Mary (they were probably lovers). He had also been working for the CIA while at the Washington Post (part of Operation Mockingbird).

James Truitt committed suicide in 1981. His widow, Evelyn Patterson Truitt, claimed that a CIA agent, Herbert Burrows, stole all his private papers soon after his death. He was not the last person to die. Leo Damore, a journalist who found out about the case while researching his book, Senatorial Privilege : The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up, began writing a book about Meyer's death. Damore claimed that a figure close to the CIA had told him that Mary's death had been a professional "hit". Damore committed suicide in October 1995. His book was never published.

[Jonathan Wendland]

John, I think you're drifting down conspiracy lane more than the evidence supports. There were very few who knew of Mary and Jack's relationship, thus there were no rumors at the time.  The commie killer rumors however make perfect sense, considering the paranoid climate of the times. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is untrue that very few people knew about JFK’s affair with Mary Meyer. You have to remember that in January, 1963, Philip Graham told a convention of journalists in Phoenix about the affair. JFK was able to stop any newspaper from publishing the story.

No, the journalists had a gentlemen's agreement to keep Kennedy's sex life private. And Pat Speer is right. Very few people knew about the Kennedy - Meyer affair. Journalists at a convention constitute a small minority of the American population. And they kept secrets within the profession. Many professions still have their trade secrets to this day even though 21st century reporters prattle about everything they hear.

JFK attempted to break-off the relationship but the White House logs show that by the late summer they are back in contact. They probably feel more secure after Graham commited suicide in August 1963.

It was common knowledge amongst the Georgetown crowd (a group that included a large number of journalists) that Mary was having an affair with JFK. Nina Burleigh discovered this while carrying out interviews for her book A Very Private Woman. Burleigh even goes on to say that during the trial, that every white person in the courtroom, bar one (Alfred Hantman) knew about the affair.

You also miss that both Bradlee and Angleton were looking for the diary at the urging of their wives, who were close to Mary and were worried that her relationship with JFK would damage Mary's reputation.  Bradlee was JFK's friend; he wrote a book about him, Conversations With Kennedy, which depicts Kennedy in a good light for the most part.  It's a bit out there to believe he would participate in the cover-up of his friend's and/or his sister-in-law's murder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If Bradlee and Angleton were the only ones who knew about them searching for the diary it might well have remained a secret. The problem was that others knew about it from the beginning.

James and Anne Truitt were initially the only ones who knew about the diary. As Angleton had Mary’s house bugged he might also have known about the diary. James and Anne Truitt were in Japan at the time of the murder. (James Truitt had been sent by Bradlee to run the Washington Post Bureau in Tokyo). The Truitts found out about the murder on the day it happened (probably via one of Mary’s friends). Anne then phones Antoinette Bradlee (Mary’s sister and Ben’s wife) and asks her to get Mary’s diary. Mary had asked Anne to do this before her death.

Maybe she was worried about her reputation. However, I doubt this. She seemed very open about her attitude towards sex. A stronger reason was she was worried that her life was in danger. This of course is supported by what Timothy Leary has to say about her visits and phone calls after JFK’s. If she is murdered, then her thought on the JFK assassination are correct. She wants this to enter the public domain.

Antoinette then tells Ben about the phone call. They go to her home together. When they arrive they find Angleton searching for the diary. He claims that Anne had phoned him to get the diary. This is highly unlikely. Especially if Mary had confided with Anne and James Truitt about the real reasons she wanted the diary saved from destruction.

If Bradlee was involved in trying to cover-up Mary Meyer's murder, he wouldn't have written about the incident with Angleton at the studio in his memoirs.  Without his confirmation, the Mary Meyer diary story would have died the rapid and well-deserved death of most stories first published in the National Enquirer.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bradlee's memoirs were published in 1995. The story of Bradlee and Angleton searching for the diary became public in March, 1976. This was as a result of James Truitt giving an interview to the National Enquirer. Truitt told the newspaper that Meyer was having an affair with John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated. He also claimed that Meyer had told his wife, Ann Truitt, that she was keeping an account of this relationship in her diary. Meyer asked Truitt to take possession of a private diary "if anything ever happened to me".

It was only at this point that Bradlee admitted that he had searched for the diary (he lied about this incident when he gave evidence at Crump's trial). James Truitt, who had divorced Anne by this stage, knew a great deal about this case. He was very close to Mary (they were probably lovers). He had also been working for the CIA while at the Washington Post (part of Operation Mockingbird).

James Truitt committed suicide in 1981. His widow, Evelyn Patterson Truitt, claimed that a CIA agent, Herbert Burrows, stole all his private papers soon after his death. He was not the last person to die. Leo Damore, a journalist who found out about the case while researching his book, Senatorial Privilege : The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up, began writing a book about Meyer's death. Damore claimed that a figure close to the CIA had told him that Mary's death had been a professional "hit". Damore committed suicide in October 1995. His book was never published.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Gerry Hemming]

Also in 1992, Robert Morrow claimed that just before the publication of the Warren Commission Report, Marshall Diggs requested a meeting. Diggs told Morrow that Tracy Barnes was concerned about information Mary Meyer had about the assassination of JFK. He asked Morrow to pass this information onto Cuban exile leader, Robert Kohly. When told, Kohly replied: “Tell Diggs I’ll take care of the matter.” A week later Mary Meyer was dead.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Does anyone know anything about Robert Kohly or Marshall Diggs?

Is Robert Morrow a reliable witness?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Robert Morrow is another of the "B.S. Clique". His singular involvement in the anti-Castro affairs in Miami was in that he was a facilitator for Mario Garcia Kohly, Sr. -- a wannabe ex-Batista politico.

Morrow was a snitch for the F.B.I. and joined with Kohly senior in the infamous plot to counterfeit Cuban currency [Pesos]and thereafter flood the island with same so as to sabotage the economy. This is a phony plot, as Castro ordered "Che" [as President of the Cuban Central Bank] to create new [non-Batista] Pesos, which would contain revolutionary portraits and symbols, i.e. INRA [The Agrarian Reform Institute], etc.!!

Much adoo was later made of the fact that "Che" signed the new bills with his nickname "Che".

Mario Kohly, Jr. ran a Judo "Dojo" located on S.W. 8th St., 3 doors west of 12th Ave. -- and collaberated with an O.N.I. informant [Cuban] who ran a TV shop across the street. Our man Richard "Dick" Whatley worked as a Kohly, Jr.

Judo/Karate assistant during 1961 [part-time].

Kohly, Jr. was extremely talkative [1961 thru 1965], but suffered from Tourette Syndrome [his head constantly vibrating right to left and back]; and moreover, was a terror to ride in a car with as a passenger. We had to yell at him at least 100 feet before a necessary turn, or he would miss it and continue straight ahead -- or worse, make the turn where no street was situated !!

Upon abandonment of the counterfeiting of the old Batista Pesos, Morrow, the Kohly group, et al. were permanently out of the anti-Castro scene. This was made very clear to them when Paulino Sierra came down from Chicago during 1963 with a failed attempt to penetrate the newly authorized [by JFK/RFK] Artime operation being located in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica [styled as "2nd Naval Guerrilla", and based at Monkey Point, Nicaragua and Tortuguero, Costa Rica (now a national park)]

The Kohly bunch uniformly scoffed at Morrows scrivened fantasies.

Gerry Patrick Hemming

___________________________

[Pat Speer]

If Bradlee was involved in trying to cover-up Mary Meyer's murder, he wouldn't have written about the incident with Angleton at the studio in his memoirs.  Without his confirmation, the Mary Meyer diary story would have died the rapid and well-deserved death of most stories first published in the National Enquirer.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bradlee's memoirs were published in 1995. The story of Bradlee and Angleton searching for the diary became public in March, 1976. This was as a result of James Truitt giving an interview to the National Enquirer. Truitt told the newspaper that Meyer was having an affair with John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated. He also claimed that Meyer had told his wife, Ann Truitt, that she was keeping an account of this relationship in her diary. Meyer asked Truitt to take possession of a private diary "if anything ever happened to me".

It was only at this point that Bradlee admitted that he had searched for the diary (he lied about this incident when he gave evidence at Crump's trial). James Truitt, who had divorced Anne by this stage, knew a great deal about this case. He was very close to Mary (they were probably lovers). He had also been working for the CIA while at the Washington Post (part of Operation Mockingbird).

James Truitt committed suicide in 1981. His widow, Evelyn Patterson Truitt, claimed that a CIA agent, Herbert Burrows, stole all his private papers soon after his death. He was not the last person to die. Leo Damore, a journalist who found out about the case while researching his book, Senatorial Privilege : The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up, began writing a book about Meyer's death. Damore claimed that a figure close to the CIA had told him that Mary's death had been a professional "hit". Damore committed suicide in October 1995. His book was never published.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

While Truitt's death, as with so many, seems suspicious, I stand by my belief that if Bradlee had been involved, he would have left the death of Mary Meyer and his discovery of Angleton out of his memoirs. Those interested in his memoirs were mostly interested in his take on Watergate; the Meyer story was totally secondary. The Truitt story in the Enquirer, as interesting as it was, had about as much credibility to historians as the Elvis is still alive stories have to music fans, without Bradlee's confirmation. I think Bradlee says in his book he first confirmed the story to the Post at the time of the Truitt article, but only wrote about it himself in his memoirs.

We're just on different sides of the fence when it comes to a GRAND conspiracy. While I tend to think one is unlikely, and tend to believe that favors were called in, mistakes were made and asses were covered, in both the Warren Commission and the HSCA, you seem to believe that such a thing could only happen if some force were orchestrating the whole thing. Everything I've learned in life tells me different.

Nobody in the government wants to be the trouble-maker, and the same is largely true of the media. While the good stories might come from raking the muck, the good paying gigs come from playing ball and never doing or saying anything that will embarrass your corporate sponsor.

While much of the HSCA investigation was a mess, I can't help but respect Robert Blakey on at least one level. He knew, in his gut, that Ruby's connection to the mob was not a coincidence. The dicta-belt recordings merely confirmed what he already believed. And he forced this view upon the HSCA. This took real courage, as Michael Baden of the medical panel, along with Vincent Guinn, and Thomas Canning, et al, had all bent over backwards to twist their evidence to point towards a single-shooter. And yet so many in the research community accuse Blakey of being a part of some conspiracy to keep the CIA out of his investigation, over-looking his recent letter on Joannides. If it weren't for Blakey, I don't think the U.S. Government would have ever acknowledged there was any evidence for a conspiracy. It's just too threatening to our deluded self-image.

[Tim Gratz]

I agree with Pat re Blakey. One may disagree with his assessment of who the conspirators were, but due to his leadership the "last" official US investigation of the assassination concludes that Kennedy died as a result of a conspiracy.

Let it never be forgot that while a presidential commission found "no evidence" of a conspiracy (which is different from a finding that there was no conspiracy) a congressional committee determined there probably was a conspiracy. The findings of the HSCA trump those of the Warren Commission. It is thus, IMO, the official position of the US government that the Kennedy assassination probably involved a conspiracy.

[Jonathan Wendland]

I agree with your reminder about the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Those who point out the 1982 Justice Department debunking of the Dictabelt miss an important point. Why did the HSCA say the conspiracy possibly involved members of organized crime ? That assertion does NOT come directly from the Dictabelt. If you use the Dictabelt as "evidence" of a fourth shot, then you're stuck with the question of whodunit. Hubert Humphrey could have fired it. If you debunk the fourth shot, then all you're debunking is a shot. You're still stuck with three shots and an invisible shooter.

How does that sound as a logical explanation of why the 1982 Justice Department review in no way disproves the HSCA assertion that an organized crime conspiracy was responsible ? The 1982 Justice attorneys can make a sound wave do various things, but they can't erase the evidence of Dutz Murret being a father figure to the seven - year - old Oswald or the evidence of Ruby's many phone calls to the phone number of Mickey Cohen's girlfriend. Maybe Mickey himself was in those telephone conversations. No cell phones then.

[John Simkin]

While Truitt's death, as with so many, seems suspicious,  I stand by my belief that if Bradlee had been involved, he would have left the death of Mary Meyer and his discovery of Angleton out of his memoirs.  Those interested in his memoirs were mostly interested in his take on Watergate; the Meyer story was totally secondary.  The Truitt story in the Enquirer, as interesting as it was, had about as much credibility to historians as the Elvis is still alive stories have to music fans, without Bradlee's confirmation.  I think Bradlee says in his book he first confirmed the story to the Post at the time of the Truitt article, but only wrote about it himself in his memoirs.

I think that people would have been highly suspicious of Ben Bradlee if he did not refer to the murder of his sister-in-law. As it was, Bradlee was criticised for the short amount of time he spent on the murder. The story of Bradlee finding Angleton in Mary’s house was not of course new. This appeared in the National Enquirer article in March, 1976. Bradlee’s wife had told Anne and James Truitt the story in 1964.

In his biography Bradlee tried to address two serious accusations made by Deborah Davis in her book Katharine the Great. Although these accusations had originally been removed in the 1979 edition, released CIA documents made it possible for Davis to include the information in later editions of the book.

This is how Bradlee dealt with the accusation that he was working for the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird while living in France in the early 1950s. Davis partly used a CIA document on the Rosenberg case to justify this claim:

On a Saturday morning I went to my immediate boss, the embassy's public affairs officer, Bill Tyler, for help. Since we couldn't get any help from Washington, why didn't we send our own man - me, obviously - to New York to read the transcript of the entire Rosenberg Trial (and appeals), return to Paris as quickly as possible, and write a detailed, factual account of the evidence as it was presented, witness by witness, and as it was rebutted, cross-examination by cross-examination? Tyler thought that was a great idea. When could I - should I leave? Right away. Fine, but it was Saturday. The banks were closed and no one had cash for the air fare. "That's all right," said Tyler. "We'll ask Bobby for some francs."

Bobby was Robert Thayer, son of the founder of St. Mark's School, a longtime friend of my mother and father, and the CIA station chief in Paris. He reached nonchalantly into the bottom drawer of his desk and fished out enough francs to fly me to the moon, much less to the Federal Courthouse in the Southern District of New York, and I left that afternoon. This incident caused me some embarrassment years later, when a woman named Deborah Davis argued in a book about Katharine Graham that I had worked for the CIA as an agent. Her "evidence," obtained through a Freedom of Information request, was an internal CIA document noting that Bobby Thayer had advanced the cash for my air fare.

[Pat Speer]

I think that people would have been highly suspicious of Ben Bradlee if he did not refer to the murder of his sister-in-law. As it was, Bradlee was criticised for the short amount of time he spent on the murder. The story of Bradlee finding Angleton in Mary’s house was not of course new. This appeared in the National Enquirer article in March, 1976. Bradlee’s wife had told Anne and James Truitt the story in 1964.

I think very few people would have cared if he'd left the story out. Although almost all of my friends know who Ben Bradlee is, not one of them had ever heard of the death of Mary Meyer till I told them about it in the last year or two. Perhaps some of our differences on this issue are cultural, John. What you may not realize is that the National Enquirer is a birdcage trash tabloid that no one takes seriously. Half of their articles are on giant babies who speak their own language and aliens who look like Pamela Anderson. The other half are shocking or titillating articles, usually containing a kernel of truth, and including embarrassing or humilating celebrity photographs, such as Nick Nolte's arrest photo or John Lennon's autopsy photos. The Enquirer is trash, and respectable people are more inclined to disbelieve anything it says than believe it.

Bradlee's excuse in his memoirs sounds reasonable to me. You have to remember that the CIA is not the boogie-man to most Americans you seem to think they are, and that back in the fifties they actually were the "good guys." Bradlee's relationship with them therefore is not the least bit surprising. To take from this that he was working for the CIA throughout his whole career, or that Watergate was a CIA operation, is to make a serious mistake, however. American history is just not as simple as all that.

Edited April 12, 2005 by Pat Speer

[John Simkin]

We're just on different sides of the fence when it comes to a GRAND conspiracy.  While I tend to think one is unlikely, and tend to believe that favors were called in, mistakes were made and asses were covered, in both the Warren Commission and the HSCA, you seem to believe that such a thing could only happen if some force were orchestrating the whole thing.  Everything I've learned in life tells me different.  

I do not believe in a Grand Conspiracy to kill JFK. I suspect very few people knew about the assassination. For the most part, even those involved would not have had a full picture of events. I suspect it was carried out in a similar fashion to the way the OSS acted in the Second World War - after all, that is where most of them got their training.

However, I do believe that a lot of people were involved in the cover-up of the assassination. Not that these people would have been aware of who was behind the conspiracy to kill JFK. The main aim of Operation Mockingbird was to exploit people in the media by appealing to their desire to be patriotic. I don’t for a moment believe that Ben Bradlee knew who killed JFK. What he was probably told that it was for the good of America that people believed that JFK had been killed by a lone assassin. This is similar to the story that LBJ told his friends in the media after the assassination: “If the truth comes out we will have a nuclear war.”

Media reporting of the assassination is of vital importance in understanding how the event was perceived by the American public. After all, in the days before the Internet, how did people get their information?

Operation Mockingbird had all the major newspapers and magazines covered. It always had problems with the alternative press. Cord Meyer has some interesting things to say about this. His view was that these media outlets were under the control of the KGB (unlike the rest, which was under the control of the CIA). It seems Operation Mockingbird did not include the National Enquirer (probably for the reasons you gave). However, we now know that James Truitt was telling the truth about the role played by Angleton and Bradlee in getting rid of any of Mary’s incriminating documents (remember, it was not only the diary Angleton destroyed).

Here is a passage from Thomas Buchanan’s book on the way the American and European media covered the assassination:

So the two main themes - for the right wing, it was a Communist, and for the liberals, a madman - were defined and endlessly repeated. From the moment Ruby had been shown upon a television screen, the first theme came to be increasingly untenable, since the majority of people felt that Oswald and Jack Ruby knew each otherand Jack Ruby makes a singularly unconvincing agent of the Kremlin. The first Gallup poll revealed that only 1 per cent thought Oswald acted as the agent of a Communist conspiracy; 29 per cent thought no one helped him; 52 per cent believed he represented an extreme right-wing group, the Mafia or some "unknown" force; the others had, presumably, not read the papers. Many of the leading magazines, newspapers, and diverse groups active in manipulating popular opinion have, however, still persisted in accepting the first thesis that the Communists ought, somehow, to be blamed - and the John Birch Society took full-page ads in the New York Times and other papers to proclaim this viewpoint.

This, of course, has been in total contrast with worldwide reactions. So far as I have been able to determine, the original official version of the crime has been believed in just one section of the world. Time says, "The white supremacists of South Africa blamed Communism, regretting that Senator Joseph McCarthy was not alive to expose it. Virtually all the rest of Africa and Asia, all evidence to the contrary, went on blaming racists in the U.S. South." The head of India's Swatantra Party, 'Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, whom Time describes as "strongly pro-American," said Oswald had been killed to "prevent the exposure of the conspiracy behind the crime" and suggested "there may be big money behind the plot."

In France, the anti-Communist but moderately Leftist France-Observateur published the picture of a leading Dallas police official with the caption, "Suspect No. 1." The leading conservative paper Le Figaro, equivalent to the New York Herald Tribune, accused Dallas law-enforcement authorities on November 28 of "contradictions, obscurities, intentional omissions, deliberate lies." And Le Monde, which corresponds to the New York Times, after a careful analysis of the official Dallas "contradictions," came to the conclusion on November 27 that there were just two explanations possible. The first of these was that the law enforcement authorities of Dallas knew that they were guilty of neglecting the precautions that they should have taken to prevent the President's assassination (they searched other buildings in the area before the crime, but not the one from which the shots were fired), and that police thereafter picked up the first suspect they could find and manufactured evidence to fit him. The second explanation, to which Le Monde accorded greater weight, was that "police of Dallas considered it advisable to choose a 'suspect' in advance, who could be charged with full responsibility not only for the murder of President Kennedy but also that of the police officer, while at the same time shielding the real criminal."

The difference between American and European attitudes towards the crime was excellently summarized in Paris-Match, France's top-circulation magazine, equivalent to Life and Time: "There exists a remarkable contrast between America and Europe, in regard to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In America, it is scarcely an exaggeration to declare that the affair is on its way to being classified and filed.... The chance encounter of an anarchist and an exhibitionist, of a depressive paranoid and one who was exuberant - that is essentially the explanation being given for the tragedy of Dallas. America accepts this conclusion. Europe, almost in its totality, rejects it. Europeans are convinced the Dallas drama hides a mystery which, if uncovered, would dishonour the United States and shake it to its foundations. So it is better to hide it. Europe might perhaps be induced to believe the explanation of the solitary individual killing the President of the United States upon the street, as not even a dog is killed. But the explanation of the police informer, the proprietor of a house of ill repute, the pimp, the professional gangster killing the President's assassin out of patriotic indignation, Europe does not believe it for a moment. Europe finds the story laughable. It throws upon the hitherto plausible explanation of a solitary Oswald an overwhelming doubt. It brings to view such abysses, in the crime of Dallas, that the eye recoils before them. It justifies suspicion of a deliberate and desperate concealment, carried out by all the organs of authority in the American nation, from the White House to Murder, Incorporated.