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Operation Mockingbird


John Simkin

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I was on the CIA payroll until John mentioned how poorly I was doing making friends for the CIA.

Had to give 'em back every penney they ever paid me!

Once again you have inserted yourself into a thread where you have nothing of any importance to contribute. All you do is for other members to see your name at the end of the thread which probably put them off from reading it (and therefore missing other member’s more interesting contributions).

Like Lynne Foster you insist of posting in every thread. Very rarely do either of you have anything of any relevance to say. It is either a puerile joke at the expense of another member or an attempt to bring the discussion round to your own theories of the assassination. This has got to stop. You are spoiling the Forum. You are both on your final warnings. If you don’t do it you will be put on permanent moderation.

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John, sometimes T.G. can be really funny, and he does offer an intelligent exchange. There's something to be said for a spirited challenge, and he can be gracious when admitting he's wrong. At least, his debates are structured, if not sometimes skewed towards his conservative [fascist] view of life. On the other hand, the bitch with the toxic urls, and xxxx for brains is another story altogether. And, I do find it reprehensible to try and lump T.G. in with the likes of that wing-nut. I know how T.G. can piss off my friend, Dawn, but it's simply a matter of politics, and which side of the battle line you're on. I think I can speak for Dawn in saying that T.G. can be trying alot of the time, but at least he's sincere in his fascist beliefs, even if his rebuttals have a tendency to make me want to strangle him most of the time. :peace

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John, whether you can understand it or not my sarcasm was intended to demonstrate the idiocy of Lynne's most recent posting.

Perhaps you did not get it. I was attempting to make a point.

You could make a good point that Lynne (intentionally or not) was trivializing your thread (and I know the importance you attribute to OM) by accusing Forum members of being part of OM. I was trying to ridicule (by sarcasm) her post.

I would also point out that there have been numerous Forum members making similar barbs at her posts.

Okay?

And John just let me remind you that on another thread I made a poinbt that many researchers doubt the credibility of Underwood's story re what Scott told him about Escalante being in Dallas. That is something I think you missed.

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"I would also point out that there have been numerous Forum members making similar barbs at her posts."

Besides, if T.G. had been excruciatingly obnoxious, I would've gone after him like a bat out of hell.

And, since I've gotten the blocking mechanism to work, I'm a much happier forum member.

Now, let me go and add that other embarrassment to my list [not you, T.G.], now that I know it works.

I found you have to re-boot before it takes effect.

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(1) In 1972, Cord Meyer, a senior official in the CIA became aware of your manuscript and made efforts to have the book withheld from publication. Could you tell us more about this story?

This entire story of the CIA's attempted suppression of the book was documented in an article that I did for the "New York Review of Books" in late 1972 and recounted, in brief, in a biography of Cord Meyer, Jr. by Merle Miller in "The New York Sunday Times Magazine." In brief, Meyer, then head of covert operations for the CIA, somehow learned of the book's contents while it was in press at Harper & Row in New York. He called on the company's publisher, a friend from New York social circles, to persuade him to suppress the book. Though the publisher refused that request, the company did agree, over my strenuous objections, to grant the Agency prior review, a dangerous transgression of constitutional protections. The US media reacted in rage and the Agency back off, producing a weak 14 page critique of the ms. and the book was published unaltered.

(2) According to the Frank Church report (Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) published in 1976, the CIA arranged for books critical of the agency to receive bad reviews in the media. Did this happen to The Politics of Heroin?

This did not happen to the book. While I was in Laos doing the research, CIA mercenaries made an assassination attempt on my research team. Even though I was a lowly graduate student at Yale University, I had an FBI phone tap, an IRS audit, an investigation of my federal fellowship by the US Department of Education, and, I believe, pressure my university to dismiss me from the graduate program. Once the book was published, the Agency threatened my sources in Laos to repudiate information they had given me. In sum, the Agency tugged at every thread in the threadbare life of an American graduate student. After the book was published and I finished my Ph.D., I found no academic employment in the US and migrated to Australia where I taught for 12 years.

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This did not happen to the book. While I was in Laos doing the research, CIA mercenaries made an assassination attempt on my research team. Even though I was a lowly graduate student at Yale University, I had an FBI phone tap, an IRS audit, an investigation of my federal fellowship by the US Department of Education, and, I believe, pressure my university to dismiss me from the graduate program. Once the book was published, the Agency threatened my sources in Laos to repudiate information they had given me. In sum, the Agency tugged at every thread in the threadbare life of an American graduate student. After the book was published and I finished my Ph.D., I found no academic employment in the US and migrated to Australia where I taught for 12 years.

What an honor: to have both Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott post here in the same day!

Prof McCoy: Your seminal work: "The politics of Heroin" made many of us 60's kids understand what Viet Nam was really all about.

Dawn

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This did not happen to the book. While I was in Laos doing the research, CIA mercenaries made an assassination attempt on my research team. Even though I was a lowly graduate student at Yale University, I had an FBI phone tap, an IRS audit, an investigation of my federal fellowship by the US Department of Education, and, I believe, pressure my university to dismiss me from the graduate program. Once the book was published, the Agency threatened my sources in Laos to repudiate information they had given me. In sum, the Agency tugged at every thread in the threadbare life of an American graduate student. After the book was published and I finished my Ph.D., I found no academic employment in the US and migrated to Australia where I taught for 12 years.

What an honor: to have both Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott post here in the same day!

Prof McCoy: Your seminal work: "The politics of Heroin" made many of us 60's kids understand what Viet Nam was really all about.

Dawn

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"What an honor: to have both Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott post here in the same day!

Prof McCoy: Your seminal work: "The politics of Heroin" made many of us 60's kids understand what Viet Nam was really all about.

Dawn"

Talk about calling up the "heavy hitters"? Our prayers have been answered, Dawn.

*********************************************************************

"The politics of Heroin"

"China White", and to think they tried to convince us we were only there for the tungsten and tin.

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David Corn Function, the

I'm not sure it relates precisely to this thread, but its about the same concept. The CIA didn't only deal in volume (Time Magazine) but could use strategically placed niche marketing like the Washington Posts' post- war makeover, and a magazine, Encounter, that played a key left middlebrow function. I call this the David Corn function, just to give it name.

O.K. Nate so what the hell is it?: Weekly colunist for a targetted magazine aimed at U.S. mildly hairy, still primarily litterate left, who has been made by the rest of the corporate media to have the goal "Lets not sound dour'. In other words The Nation Magazine.

This guy job is to mediate between the mag, and the more general political narative going on in mass corporate media (Times, Newsweek-Post, NBC). While the other four weekely columnyists are writing in a conceptual framework-- media, legal, financial, etc-- this guy determines the specific spin that a magazine will take at key defining moments of the corporate construction of the political spectrum, that will get called the news. (e.g. Hillery visits Rochester Flag Factory, while Faluja is quietly bombed on CNN.)

Heres one of five mid-level editors at small but strategically will-0-whisp left magazines who are going to determine what a lot of other journalsists are going to read. Or not read.

If I were the CIA, these are the type of people I'd be currious about.

What I found refreshing about Joan Mellen's book was that it named names: reporters and their employers.

What Im wondering about in this roundabout post, is ...

Does anyone know anything more about communications theory, and just where on the flow of information, the CIA would most logically place itself?

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  • 3 months later...
Today on part 2 of their series on The CIA and the Nation Magazine Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone called for a boycott of The Nation Magazine. This is a left-liberal magazine that has been accused by some of being a playing a "left-gatekeeping" role for the CIA regarding the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11.

The program was specifically devoted to the role of Max Holland, a Nation editorial board member, who has also been published by journals run by the CIA and on the CIA's website.

What do members think of this strategy?

Do you think it is possible--given Operation Mockingbird and the history of the CIA and "left" publications-- that the CIA is embedded in The Nation?

The program, which is very easily downloadable by googling Taking Aim, makes much of The Book The Sword and the Shield, which it claims is work of CIA disinformation, designed to show that the Italian Communist Newspaper quoted by some JFK researchers in reference to CLay Shaw, was a tool of the U.S.S.R. Schoenman makes a strong case that this was not the case, and suggests that The Nation is aware

the Max Holland is deliberately practicing disinformation in using this book as a source.

I have been thinking of The Nation in this light for some time, not just with reference to Max Holland. Someone who has always made me suspicious is David Corn, whose appologetics for the zombie like DLC-DNC has always seemed incongrous with the magazine's "left image"

Has anyone here read Corn's bio of Ted Shackley called Blond Ghost? What do you think of it? Someone recently told me they thought it was an extended puff piece.

I think a boycott of this magazine could have an impact for the same reason that it might prove attractive to the CIA: it is in a niche market, and its significance is more in its strategic postion on the media-political-spectrum, than in its circulation.

The main objective of Operation Mockingbird has always been to control the “liberal” media. Tom Braden revealed this in his 1967 interview. As he pointed out, those on the right were willing to write pro-CIA articles for free. It was the ability to get CIA disinformation into the liberal press that was really important.

It is significant that Phil Graham was a key figure in Operation Mockingbird. His Washington Post was seen as a "liberal" newspaper. Cord Meyer, who ran Mockingbird in the late 1940s and early 1950s was seen as left-wing (he was denounced by Joe McCarthy as a communist).

Jack Anderson is the classic example of an investigative reporter who was manipulated by the CIA and the FBI. Even the great Drew Pearson went along with this occasionally if it meant the opportunity to hurt his enemies (see the Owen Brewster/Howard Hughes case).

I am also suspicious of David Corn. Blond Ghost is a good read and contains a lot of interesting information. However, I think this is an excellent example of what Victor Marchetti called a “limited hangout”. See his article about Howard Hunt and the assassination of JFK here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3841

Here is the relevant quotation:

Victor Marchetti, The Spotlight (14th August, 1978)

A few months ago, in March, there was a meeting at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., the plush home of America's super spooks overlooking the Potomac River. It was attended by several high-level clandestine officers and some former top officials of the agency.

The topic of discussion was: What to do about recent revelations associating President Kennedy's accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, with the spy game played between the U.S. and the USSR? (Spotlight, May 8, 1978.) A decision was made, and a course of action determined. They were calculated to both fascinate and confuse the public by staging a clever "limited hangout" when the House Special Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) holds its open hearings, beginning later this month.

A "limited hangout" is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting - sometimes even volunteering some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.

The Washington Post reporting on Watergate was another example of a "limited hangout".

Corn’s book is interesting for what it does not include. The section on Ted Shackley’s relationship with Edwin Wilson is very poor. There is also little in the book on his involvement with Paul Heliwell in the operations against Fidel Castro. This is no coincidence. The same is true of Evan Thomas’ The Very Best Men. Again it is full of fascinating information but is once again a “limited hangout”.

I think Joe Trento is another one who falls into this category. Like Anderson, Pearson, etc. he publishes some good stories based on CIA leaks. Unlike Corn and Thomas, he is not paid to protect Shackley.

However, he is very keen to believe any information he receives that suggests that Fidel Castro was behind the assassination of JFK. As you will remember, Tim Gratz used to keep on pointing out “Trento is on the left”. That is of course the message. “He is trustworthy because he has a reputation of exposing the CIA”. This is also true of Corn and Thomas. It is all part of the “limited hangout” strategy.

You will find a good summary and links to other articles here:

http://www.oilempire.us/the-nation.html

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  • 1 month later...

An important figure in Operation Mockingbird died last week. Abe Rosenthal was managing editor of the New York Times between 1969 and 1987. In this role he was able to block most articles that criticised the CIA. One bad miss was Raymond Bonner’s exposure of the Salvadorean government massacre of nearly 1,000 men, women and children in the small town of El Mozote in early 1982. As a result of this article by Bonner, Rosenthal was forced by the CIA to recall him to New York. Bonner eventually resigned in protest. The El Mozote massacre is now acknowledged as historical fact, however, Bonner’s career was destroyed by Rosenthal and the CIA.

Interestingly, Rosenthal, a passionate supporter of the Vietnam War, published the Pentagon Papers, in the New York Times. I believe Rosenthal was acting under the orders of the CIA when he published this story.

Daniel Ellsberg was a member of the McNamara Study Group that in 1968 had produced the classified History of Decision Making in Vietnam, 1945-1968. Ellsberg, disillusioned with the progress of the war, believed this document should be made available to the public. He gave a copy of what later became known as the Pentagon Papers to William Fulbright. However, he refused to do anything with the document, so Ellsberg gave a copy to Phil Geyelin of the Washington Post. Ben Bradlee decided against publishing the contents on the document.

Ellsberg now went to the New York Times and they began publishing extracts from the document on 13th June, 1971. This included information that Dwight Eisenhower had made a secret commitment to help the French defeat the rebellion in Vietnam. The document also showed that John F. Kennedy had turned this commitment into a war by using a secret "provocation strategy" that led to the Gulf of Tonkin incidents and that Lyndon B. Johnson had planned from the beginning of his presidency to expand the war.

Bradlee was criticised by his journalists for failing to break this story. He now made attempts to catch up and on June 18, 1971, the Washington Post began publishing extracts from the History of Decision Making in Vietnam, 1945-1968. However, Bradlee concentrated on the period when Dwight Eisenhower was in power.

Bradlee had worked for the CIA in 1952 via the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE), the embassy's propaganda unit. USIE produced films, magazines, research, speeches, and news items for use by the throughout Europe. USIE (later known as USIA) also controlled the Voice of America, a means of disseminating pro-American "cultural information" worldwide. While at the USIE Bradlee worked with E. Howard Hunt.

According to a Justice Department memo from a assistant U.S. attorney in the Rosenberg Trial Bradlee was helping the CIA to manage European propaganda regarding the spying conviction and the execution of Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg on 19th June, 1953.

Bradlee’s brother-in-law was Cord Meyer, a key figure in Operation Mockingbird. Bradlee’s wife was a close friend of Cicely d'Autremont, who was married to James Angleton. Bradlee worked closely with Angleton in Paris. At the time Angleton was liaison for all Allied intelligence in Europe. His deputy was Richard Ober, a fellow student of Bradlee's at Harvard University. Ober was later to become Deep Throat.

Bradlee went on to work with Newsweek. In 1961 Richard Helms tipped off Bradlee that his grandfather, Gates White McGarrah, was willing to sell Newsweek. Bradlee went to Philip Graham with the story. Graham, a senior figure in Operation Mockingbird, was interested in buying the journal and gave Bradlee a handwritten check for $1 million to convey to McGarrah as a down payment.

Later, Bradlee was rewarded by becoming editor of the Washington Post. Wht then did two leading figures in Operation Mockingbird publish the Pentagon Papers and stories about Watergate? Could it be that the CIA wanted Nixon removed from office?

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While 'business as usual' is pretty much to be expected as part of status quo government. 'Total Information Awareness' makes Operation Mockingbird [the early 1960's version] seem anachronistic, and is anything but 'status quo'. Forget about 'intelligence assets' joining the forum to engage in 'spirited debate' try NSA files on every man, woman and child - ostensibly including pertinent information of every description.

The dynamic of crucial issues regarding the world in the third millenium, requires every person to be well schooled in geopolitics; considering that some scholars cite George Keenan and John McCloy as the 'only two' American's in the 20th Century to be so qualified, indicates that there is a serious learning curve problem.

The 'main problem' in America if I may be so bold, [as to imply I have the insight to offer an opinion]

is not the issues at hand but rather the 'structure of information and the average American's, [if there is such a thing] perception of what is the most credible source of information.

Ostensibly, with the most accurate portrayal of shared perceptions the current impasse [regarding America's paradigm shift from Democratic Government circa 1962 to the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption in the year 2006,] would fall like a house of cards. But, that is 'pie in the sky.'

While the academics of the world would cite the two World War's, the massive death toll's of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the introduction of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction [MAD] and the rise of 'militant Islam' and the philo/religious consensus of moral relativism as the ostensible Greatest Tragedies of the 20th Century. Could they be only partially correct?

Could not the greatest tragedy of the 20th Century simply be following the axiom of Santanaya, that if one does not learn from the mistakes of the past, they are doomed to repeat them. True or False

What were the mistakes?

Forgetting that utopian idealism has little in common with man's inherent proclivity to treat his fellow man as nothing more than an animal, and that dynamic extends into the 'Game of Nations'.

Forgetting that the motto, 'the end's justifies the means' is not the intellectual property of any political affiliation.

For the West, perhaps it wasn't 'forgetting' that liberty requires eternal vigilance as much as the failure to preserve intellectual transmission of knowledge, the Bedouin' are cited as being ablre to recount their families genealogical history, going back hundred's of years...All knowledge of history must be adequately transmitted to each succeeding generation to preserve true historical facts, imagine America battling domestic and foreign war's in the late 60's thru early 70's attempting to transmit the 'dynamics of the JFK Saga' to their children, and you can see how easy manufacturing consensus can ostensibly be.

One might even state that a true world history has never been recorded in the 'modern era,' as inane as the argument appears, it beg's the question.

If secret societies activities in the world are known only to those 'on the inside,' and historians do not attempt to ascertain their activities, [or can't] is any 'History of the World' adequate as a point of reference?

If one discounts 'intellectual arguments of a particular time period' and at the same time uses the qualifier of viewing history in a linear fashion eliminatig the aformentioned, the same dialectic that was present in the geopolitical world of the 18th century applied to today would reveal?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I found this paragraph (and a couple of others) from the article by Jefferson Morley called "What Jane ?

Knew" relevent to Operation Mockingbird discussions. It suggests how a strong anti-conspiracy theory had become institutionalized within Washington Post, and had nominally coalesced around a negative reaction to the Oliver Stone movie. This straw dog was seen as disturbing to the editors of the paper.

This shows how a previous history of more direct CIA control might still linger as a miasma of prejudice years later:

I was beginning to get realistic. Lardner’s fine reporting notwithstanding, my employer, for better or worse, had become institutionally tilted to the anti-conspiratorial perspective in a way that gave CIA personnel the benefit of the doubt on the events of 1963. This wasn’t surprising given the commonality of interests between Post people and agency people. I had seen Jane Roman’s good friend and former boss Dick Helms, still hale in his late 70’s, at more than one Post social event. Whatever remarks I had elicited from Jane Roman were not going to drag the Washington Post back into the JFK conspiracy tar pit. It was naïve to think they might.

Sorry if I may have misspelled miasma.

re:above

Here is a fuller quote from the Jefferson Morley article" What Jane Roman Knew" by Jeffereson Morley. Thanks to Jim Root for posting it on another thread. Must reading!

These were provocative formulations for the newsroom of the Washington Post. Nobody could deny that Jane Roman had been in an interesting spot in 1963 or that she had talked to me or that she had said the things she said. But my scoop—the first on-the-record interview with a CIA counterintelligence official who knew about accused assassin Lee Oswald before the Kennedy assassination--did not impress my superiors.

One senior editor whom I respected a great deal told me he knew Roman but he was not curious about her perspective on events leading up to the Kennedy assassination. In certain respects, I could understand why.

I was putting forward Roman’s comments as news less than three years after the huge controversy raised by the popularity of Oliver Stone’s “JFK.” Unfortunately, the Post had become identified with debunking and discrediting Stone. The Post’s George Lardner, one of the few newspaper reporters on record as believing that there had been conspiracy, became a polemical target for Stone. When Stone recklessly described Lardner as a CIA agent the possibilities of genuine debate narrowed. Stone apologized but it was too late. The notion that Jane Roman was newsworthy could be seen as implicit statement that maybe the Kennedy assassination was still an open question. That could be taken as a concession to Stone---not something editors loyal to Lardner were in any mood to do. The polemics around Stone’s movie made it harder to talk about facts. I had the sense that Lardner, a great reporter, winner of a Pulitzer and a thoroughly decent man, regretted this turn of events.

Others felt the whole subject was a waste of time, and who could blame them with a newspaper to put out tomorrow?

But not everyone was so jaded. The younger generation of working reporters around the Post newsroom, people who came of age in the 1970s, was much more relaxed and open-minded about poking at the Kennedy assassination. One ace Metro reporter recalled her own investigations of the Dealey Plaza tragedy for a high school debate team and urged me on. At least two senior editors, a well-traveled foreign correspondent and an accomplished staff writer, gave me advice about how to distill the complex essence of what Roman said into a news story.

My story went through an extensive editing process. The newsroom of a big newspaper like the Post is, perhaps by necessity, democratic. Decision-making is often collegial and the handling of my story was a group process. My colleagues seemed to respect my reporting, recognized that Roman was an interesting person and had said I reported. But since they couldn’t agree on the significance of what she said, the paper’s editors would not publish my story in the news section. It was an opinion piece, they said. It was decided the story would be published in the Sunday Outlook section where I worked an editor.

I didn’t like this implicit downgrading of the story. My story was newsworthy. It seemed to me a political decision driven more by antipathy to Stone than by the objective evidence of what Jane Roman had said. I kept my prejudices to myself and acquiesced for the sake of getting Roman’s comments in the paper and on the record.

There were many drafts. News editors edited my opinion story, which was unusual. I didn’t care. I wanted the story to be transparent. I was open to all suggestions. On Sunday, April 24, 1995, the story finally appeared under the headline “The Oswald File: Tales of the Routing Slips.”

Through all the editing battles I had managed to keep the point of the story front and center. The gist of the story was in the third paragraph:

“The routing slips on newly released files show that some senior CIA officials who knew about the FBI reports [on accused assassin Oswald] failed to share the information with agency colleagues in Mexico City who were trying to learn more about Oswald six weeks before the assassination.”

I was happy but not for long. In the days that followed, more than one Post editor took me aside to say, with genuine concern, that my interest in the Kennedy assassination wasn’t going to “look good on my resume” and “wasn’t the way to build my career.”

Jane Roman made it known she was very unhappy. She believed that I had made a “monstrous mountain out of a molehill.” I offered her a chance to respond in print in the Outlook section. She attempted to write something but put it aside and never sent it to us. My superiors evinced no interest in pursuing the implications of what Jane Roman said.

I was beginning to get realistic. Lardner’s fine reporting notwithstanding, my employer, for better or worse, had become institutionally tilted to the anti-conspiratorial perspective in a way that gave CIA personnel the benefit of the doubt on the events of 1963. This wasn’t surprising given the commonality of interests between Post people and agency people. I had seen Jane Roman’s good friend and former boss Dick Helms, still hale in his late 70’s, at more than one Post social event. Whatever remarks I had elicited from Jane Roman were not going to drag the Washington Post back into the JFK conspiracy tar pit. It was naïve to think they might.

Since Jane Roman wasn’t talking to me and my bosses weren’t curious about what she said, there clearly wasn’t going to be a follow-up story seeking to clarify the pre-assassination Oswald paper trail. Without the ability to advance the story, my scoop in Outlook appeared to be no scoop at all, merely a difference of opinion that was not worth pursuing. All I had done, it seemed, was get the Washington Post caught up in one of those JFK conspiracy debates that go nowhere and bore everyone.

I decided to forget about Jane Roman. I no longer cared to risk my left one, thank you Ben Bradlee.

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I was happy but not for long. In the days that followed, more than one Post editor took me aside to say, with genuine concern, that my interest in the Kennedy assassination wasn’t going to “look good on my resume” and “wasn’t the way to build my career.”

This is often the sort of thing said to journalists and historians who show an interest in the JFK assassination. It was even said to me. It came from a well-respected and well-connected historian. His point was that by publishing my research into the JFK assassination I was damaging my reputation as a historian.

A similar message comes from the interview with Professor Colin Kidd:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6978

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I was happy but not for long. In the days that followed, more than one Post editor took me aside to say, with genuine concern, that my interest in the Kennedy assassination wasn’t going to “look good on my resume” and “wasn’t the way to build my career.”

This is often the sort of thing said to journalists and historians who show an interest in the JFK assassination. It was even said to me. It came from a well-respected and well-connected historian. His point was that by publishing my research into the JFK assassination I was damaging my reputation as a historian.

Any rational analysis of Mockingbird makes it apparent that the "left" or "alternative media" [supply whatever euphemism you think more accurate] have been infiltrated by those who - on behalf of their covert sponsor - have annointed themselves as the gatekeepers of what can and cannot be discussed. Those who rebuff the attempts at coersion, intimidation and outside influence are mocked [hmmm... "MOCKingbird?"] and derided, soon finding themselves excommunicated from the "acceptable" members of "polite" society. "Oh dear, the chattering classes have ostracized me... whatever will I do now?"

We see the very same technique at play here at the Forum quite often, when those who arrogate such a 'moderate' status for themselves presume to instruct others here on what can and cannot be discussed. The effect, and intent, is to chill debates and make the more keen-minded and inquisitive members leery of pursuing lines of inquiry that then whither and die without further scrutiny. Those who persist will be attacked mercilessly for their vigor, and ridiculed for their conclusions, which are branded as "unacceptable" for consumption by the broader community.

In furtherance of that never-stated agenda, we see the most juvenile debating techniques employed, whether it's the strawman argument, the false dichotomy, and/or the last recourse for those without a case to state: when you have no way to refute the message, attack the messenger.

I've been watching for a decade as this pattern recurs in one JFK forum after another, with many of the usual suspects either showing up to wage this battle themselves, or to instruct their minions to do so on their behalf, in order that their own role in the battle never be recognized.

Old legal adage: "When you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. When you have the law on your side, pound the law. When you have neither, pound the table."

Why, at this late date, are certain Forum members still so insistent that others be dissuaded from pursuing whatever they think is potentially probative? Why are certain Forum members anxious to truncate and stifle further investigation? What can be concluded about "researchers" who seem to spend most of their time dissuading, redirecting and foreclosing "research?"

CIA Document #1035-960

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results.

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination.

Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

f. As to charges that the Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.

g. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

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There is an interesting story in Robert Parry's Lost History that illustrates how Operation Mockingbird works. On page 130 Parry points out after his stories on Oliver North were published by AP he was recruited by Evan Thomas to join the staff of Newsweek (February, 1987). However, soon afterwards Evan Thomas seemed to lose interest in his research into North. In fact, he came under pressure not to write about North. For example, Newsweek did not send Parry, or any other member of staff to report on North’s trial in 1989. By 1990 Thomas made clear that Parry was no longer wanted at Newsweek and he agreed to leave the organization.

Is it possible that Evan Thomas recruited Parry in order to keep him off the case? I say this because it has been claimed that Newsweek was a very important part of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird. See for example, Carl Bernstein’s CIA and the Media in Rolling Stone Magazine (20th October, 1977).

In her book, Katharine The Great (1979), Deborah Davis points out that Newsweek was owned by the Astor Foundation. The most dominant figure of the organization was Gates White McGarrah. His grandson was Richard McGarrah Helms, a leading figure in the CIA’s Directorate of Plans that ran Mockingbird. Helms was a childhood friend of Ben Bradlee (page 141). In the early 1950s Bradlee worked for the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE). This was an organization under the control of the CIA. In 1953 Bradlee went to work for Newsweek. Recently released documents concerning the Rosenberg case show that while employed by Newsweek, Bradlee was also working for the CIA.

In 1961 it was Ben Bradlee who told Phil Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post, that Newsweek was up for sale. Bradlee told Graham that he had heard this from his good friend, Richard Helms (page 142). Phil Graham had been recruited to Operation Mockingbird by Frank Wisner soon after the CIA was created in 1947. Wisner and Graham had both been members of the OSS during the Second World War.

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There is an interesting story in Robert Parry's Lost History that illustrates how Operation Mockingbird works. On page 130 Parry points out after his stories on Oliver North were published by AP he was recruited by Evan Thomas to join the staff of Newsweek (February, 1987). However, soon afterwards Evan Thomas seemed to lose interest in his research into North. In fact, he came under pressure not to write about North. For example, Newsweek did not send Parry, or any other member of staff to report on North’s trial in 1989. By 1990 Thomas made clear that Parry was no longer wanted at Newsweek and he agreed to leave the organization.

Is it possible that Evan Thomas recruited Parry in order to keep him off the case? I say this because it has been claimed that Newsweek was a very important part of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird. See for example, Carl Bernstein’s CIA and the Media in Rolling Stone Magazine (20th October, 1977).

In her book, Katharine The Great (1979), Deborah Davis points out that Newsweek was owned by the Astor Foundation. The most dominant figure of the organization was Gates White McGarrah. His grandson was Richard McGarrah Helms, a leading figure in the CIA’s Directorate of Plans that ran Mockingbird. Helms was a childhood friend of Ben Bradlee (page 141). In the early 1950s Bradlee worked for the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE). This was an organization under the control of the CIA. In 1953 Bradlee went to work for Newsweek. Recently released documents concerning the Rosenberg case show that while employed by Newsweek, Bradlee was also working for the CIA.

In 1961 it was Ben Bradlee who told Phil Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post, that Newsweek was up for sale. Bradlee told Graham that he had heard this from his good friend, Richard Helms (page 142). Phil Graham had been recruited to Operation Mockingbird by Frank Wisner soon after the CIA was created in 1947. Wisner and Graham had both been members of the OSS during the Second World War.

John...Has anybody compiled a list of all persons connected to the JFK case

who also have CONNECTIONS TO THE CIA?

Might be worth starting a thread.

Jack

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