Why CBS Covered up the JFK Case (pt1)

[Michael Walton]

Here's the clip:

Dan Rather on David Letterman Show One Week After 9-11

Related to Dan Rather and the manipulation of the media, he was on board as an official mouthpiece as early as 11/25/63 when he played his role of "reporter" perfectly. He did this as an observer of the Zapruder film that night on live TV describing the Z film head shot as "Kennedy's head falls forward" (and dramatically acts it out on air). And never mind it took the public 12 long years to see the film for ourselves and to draw our own conclusions.

Elsewhere on this forum, another commentator said that his head does fall forward (in other words, Rather was telling the truth). I agreed with him and replied further:

"Yes, [xxxx], he says it falls forward and it does. But what speaks much, much louder is what he did NOT say - that his head is then thrown violently backward. As a reporter reporting, his obligation to his audience was to report *everything.* Thus, the disinformation campaign [between the government and the media] had begun at that point."

[Ron Ecker]

Dan Rather pretended "not to see."

Oh, he's a great pretender. I'll never forget seeing him interviewed during the Clinton sex scandals. The interviewer (I forget who it was) brought up Juanita Broaddrick, whose claim of being raped by Clinton was then well known. This journalist Dan Rather sat there and said, "Who's Juanita Broaddrick?"

To his credit the interviewer didn't let him get away with it, and as I recall Rather almost immediately had to drop his pretended ignorance.

[James DiEugenio]

Rather's comment to Tanenbaum, which I quote near the end of part 2 is quite revealing.

"We really blew it on the JFK Case."

Note the use of the plural.

Anyone who could sit through that silly test Wyckoff did with those cameras, or postulate that Oswald could have shot through frame 186, an opening in the branches of the oak tree, or cooperated in a scripted interview by the Justice Department with Humes, all this is ridiculous. But Dan did it.

Then in 1993, 30 years later, he admits CBS blew it. Oh really?

Edited April 15, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Pat Speer]

FWIW, Jim, I'm not sure Rather's interview with Humes was scripted by the Justice Department. In fact, I suspect it was not. CBS wanted Humes for the show. They sought the Johnson Administration's help in making this happen. The USIA and the Justice Department then prepared "talking points" for Humes to use when responding to Rather's questions. The questions on the "talking points" were not identical to the questions actually asked by Rather, however, and some of Humes' responses strayed a bit from what he was supposed to say. So this leads me to believe that Rather's words in the actual interview were not scripted by the Justice Department.

It's a minor detail, in the big picture. Rather almost certainly knew that everything Humes was telling him had been approved by the Justice Department, but never thought this worth mentioning to his audience. That's one of the unwritten rules of TV journalism. When you get a "scoop" or an "exclusive," you throw softballs, and fail to ask the really hard questions. Why? Otherwise, no one will talk to you.

(There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule. Sometimes people want to be asked the hard questions, so they can cry on cue and ask for forgiveness, etc. But these are interviews conducted once the facts are in, as opposed to interviews conducted in order to get at the facts.)

[Chris Davidson]

Here's the clip:

Dan Rather on David Letterman Show One Week After 9-11

Related to Dan Rather and the manipulation of the media, he was on board as an official mouthpiece as early as 11/25/63 when he played his role of "reporter" perfectly. He did this as an observer of the Zapruder film that night on live TV describing the Z film head shot as "Kennedy's head falls forward" (and dramatically acts it out on air). And never mind it took the public 12 long years to see the film for ourselves and to draw our own conclusions.

Elsewhere on this forum, another commentator said that his head does fall forward (in other words, Rather was telling the truth). I agreed with him and replied further:

"Yes, [xxxx], he says it falls forward and it does. But what speaks much, much louder is what he did NOT say - that his head is then thrown violently backward. As a reporter reporting, his obligation to his audience was to report *everything.* Thus, the disinformation campaign [between the government and the media] had begun at that point."

The original quote from Michael:

"It may be hard to believe but not every single piece of evidence needed to be forged in this case. One piece of evidence I do believe was faked was the back yardPHOTOS, and there was quite a bit of faking on the mail order of the rifle. But the Z film was simply withheld from the public while at the same time the disinformation campaignSTARTED about it soon after (like Rather saying the president's head fell forward at Z313)."

My response:

"It appears you've created a conundrum for yourself.

According to the extant Zfilm, JFK's head does fall forward at z313.

How can Rather's disinformation start when it equates to existing events within the extant zfilm, which you believe to be unaltered?"

Yet, you didn't include this " "Yes, [xxxx], he says it falls forward and it does. But what speaks much, much louder is what he did NOT say - that his head is then thrown violently backward. As a reporter reporting, his obligation to his audience was to report *everything.* Thus, the disinformation campaign [between the government and the media] had begun at that point." with this (like Rather saying the president's head fell forward at Z313)."

originally, did you?

[Don Jeffries]

The performance of CBS and the other mainstream media of the day foretold what is now common practice. There is no skepticism among professional "journalists," unless it's directed towards those who are skeptical of all these impossible official narratives. They have been trained to smear the whistleblower, instead of exposing the wrongdoers.

Even when we examine much older history, such as the Lincoln assassination, or even the death of Meriweather Lewis, we find the same closed-mindedness, the same reluctance to abandon "official" history. These journalists have a great stake in all our fake history- after all, they bought the ridiculous lies of government officials and passed them along to the public as truth.

Thus, even today, establishment historians and government officials fight tooth-and-nail to prevent the descendants of John Wilkes Booth from exhuming the body buried under his name. They don't want to admit their predecessors were wrong, or that they were misguided, to put it kindly, to trust so passionately in officialdom.

The recent Stephen King miniseries, attempt by Tom Hanks to promulgate Bugliosi's magnus ridiculotus, and now the vicious anti-Kennedy opera, demonstrate just how much the establishment continues to hate JFK and his family. In time, we may come to look back upon the initial CBS disinformation pieces fondly in comparison.

[James DiEugenio]

DJ: The performance of CBS and the other mainstream media of the day foretold what is now common practice.

​This is what makes it so significant.

As Roger wrote in his script--which I linked to at the end--by breaking all of its internal rules and controls, and by in essence, coercing the whole creative team to go along, CBS set a precedent in the field. One which sanctioned and approved what came after it.

​As I further expanded on this, what is really incredible about this ransacking of their own internal ethics, is that no one screamed, no one quit, no one resigned in disgust. This is the murder of President Kennedy.

​And the one guy who did resist--Roger Feinman-- got terminated.

​If anything shows the social and political problems of a corporate media structure, this does.

PS Thanks to Pat Speer, the article now has a document addendum to it, made up of some of the actual memos Pat got screen captures of.

Edited April 15, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[David G. Healy]

FWIW, Jim, I'm not sure Rather's interview with Humes was scripted by the Justice Department. In fact, I suspect it was not. CBS wanted Humes for the show. They sought the Johnson Administration's help in making this happen. The USIA and the Justice Department then prepared "talking points" for Humes to use when responding to Rather's questions. The questions on the "talking points" were not identical to the questions actually asked by Rather, however, and some of Humes' responses strayed a bit from what he was supposed to say. So this leads me to believe that Rather's words in the actual interview were not scripted by the Justice Department.

It's a minor detail, in the big picture. Rather almost certainly knew that everything Humes was telling him had been approved by the Justice Department, but never thought this worth mentioning to his audience. That's one of the unwritten rules of TV journalism. When you get a "scoop" or an "exclusive," you throw softballs, and fail to ask the really hard questions. Why? Otherwise, no one will talk to you.

(There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule. Sometimes people want to be asked the hard questions, so they can cry on cue and ask for forgiveness, etc. But these are interviews conducted once the facts are in, as opposed to interviews conducted in order to get at the facts.)

c'mon Pat, you know well, interviewers and interviewees can be force fed alternate questions and answers/responses during a location interview. Primarily fed by the attending location producer. Whether the facts are in or not! Rather did not need a scoop! He left dusty Texas, didn't he?

Edited April 15, 2016 by David G. Healy

[Michael Walton]

CD: Yet, you didn't include this...originally, did you?

Chris,

The original quote that I added to your "Swan Song" was a counter-argument to your thread's topic, which is:

Chris thinks the Z film was altered

Chris attempts to use Math to prove the film alteration

My quote was an argument to yours attempting to show that the Z film was not altered, that there was no reason to alter it, and that the Z film is the most important piece of the case, and that's why it was kept from the public for 12 years.

This thread, called "Why CBS Covered up the JFK Case (pt1)" is a completely different topic than the "Swan Song" thread. This thread is about how the media was manipulated by the government to fit the conclusions of the WC now and forever.

So rather than pull my entire "Swan Song" quote and put it here, I paraphrased it to show how media manipulation started as early as 11/25/63 on live TV when Rather ignored describing the part of the Z film showing Kennedy's body being slammed violently backward against the car seat.

[Chris Davidson]

Michael,

Let's rephrase the last part of your quote:

"It may be hard to believe but not every single piece of evidence needed to be forged in this case. One piece of evidence I do believe was faked was the back yardPHOTOS, and there was quite a bit of faking on the mail order of the rifle. But the Z film was simply withheld from the public while at the same time the disinformation campaignSTARTED about it soon after (like Rather saying the president's head fell forward at Z313)."

to: Rather was part of the disinformation campaign, (saying the presidents head fell forward), which started after the zfilm was withheld from the public.

My immediate question to you was: How can Rather's disinformation start when it equates to existing events within the extant zfilm, which you believe to be unaltered?"

If anybody comprehended your original quote differently, I'm all ears.

Added on edit: ( )

Edited April 16, 2016 by Chris Davidson

[Myra Bronstein]

DJ: ...As I further expanded on this, what is really incredible about this ransacking of their own internal ethics, is that no one screamed, no one quit, no one resigned in disgust. This is the murder of President Kennedy.

​And the one guy who did resist--Roger Feinman-- got terminated.

​If anything shows the social and political problems of a corporate media structure, this does.

PS Thanks to Pat Speer, the article now has a document addendum to it, made up of some of the actual memos Pat got screen captures of.

Thank you for making those CBS memos available Pat, and calling attention to them Jim!

[James DiEugenio]

Welcome.

Its a great story, because Roger lifted up the hood and showed us the motor so to speak.

At the cost of his career.

[James DiEugenio]

Len Osanic and I did pretty much a whole radio interview on this last night.

http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black779a.mp3

This thing was getting almost 1800 views per day at ctka.

Bob Parry liked it so much that he rewrote it slightly and placed it at his site Consortium News. So we will set up a link to that version.

I like doing this since that site is more broadly based and widely circulated.

Edited April 22, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[David Von Pein]

ConsortiumNews.com/2016/04/22/how-cbs-news-aided-the-jfk-cover-up/

Edited April 22, 2016 by David Von Pein

[Brad Milch]

I was disappointed in James & Len Osanic's interview from last night in that Mr. DiEugenio points out CBS left out the LHO sidewalk tree & the curve in Elm Street but forgot the most important detail of all......no representation for the SS followup car & it's agents inside the car & outside on the two running boards was included in the re-enactment. IMHO, the public needs to focus on that issue of the vanishing guards & their car that was left out of the initial SS & FBI filmed re-enactments starting the week after the assassination & continuing into 1964.

Visit Mr. Von Pein's spectacular video collection & look for the SS followup car & actor stand in's for the agents in the Government re-enactments & those conducted by MSM in their TV specials, computer animators & TV mini-series & movies. You won't find them. CBS used a portion of the SS film re-enactment & boldly told its audience that what they were watching was a filmed re-enactment of JFK's murder when in fact what theaudience was seeing was a car representing JFK's limo being driven as a solo target down Elm St. with no consideration for the big & taller obstacle that was directly behind it (Queen Mary) during the actual ambush. Line of sight blockage wasn't a problem for an alleged assassin because Hoover & Rowley's boy removed it from an unsuspecting public that trusted them.

What Hoover's FMI & Rowley's SS did was like running an ad for a used car photo in the newspapers & not mentioning the other side of the car (not visible in the photo) is allsmashed in.

I'm beginning to think some JFK researchers are afraid to discuss the missing SS followup car in the initial re-enactments & those that followed the past 53 years. I don't believe in tip toeing thru the tulips...I'm broadcasting it loudly here at the Ed Forum for those afraid to discuss it. Someone needs to put a YouTube video on that subject out there. I'm emailing a couple visualists to help get the word out if the highest respected researchers are operating under some kind of gag order or fear.

BM

Edited April 22, 2016 by Brad Milch