Life Magazine and the Assassination of JFK Options

[John Simkin]

Thought it might be interesting to have a discussion on this issue (material taken from other threads on the Forum).

Once, on this Forum, several months ago, someone claimed that when you were working on the assassination for "Life" magazine it was not a serious attempt to solve the assassination (because "Life" was supposedly under the control of the CIA).  I recall that "Life" was one of the first major media to raise questions about the Warren Commission.  I am sure many people in the US first began to doubt the Warren Commission because of "Life" magazine.

Much of that "doubt" was caused by LIFE's own foolishness and sleight of hand. 

*  This would be the same LIFE that airbrushed the backyard photo that ran on its cover, in order to enhance the speculation that Oswald was holding the murder weapons in those pix. 

*  This was the same LIFE that transposed critical Z-film frames, in precisely the same fashion as did the WC, in order to falsely corrupt any critical analysis of their pictorial contents. 

*  This was the same LIFE that fought tooth and nail in court to ensure that a Z-film copy pilfered by its own contractee, Josiah Thompson, wouldn't appear in his book, nor would allow him to use illustrations of those Z-film frames.  Why not ask Tink his opinion on how sincere LIFE was about revealing the truth about the assassination?  He had a front-row seat for LIFE's struggle against the truth ever being revealed.

*  This is the same LIFE that fought tooth and nail in court to prevent Jim Garrison being granted access to what was thought to be the most vital piece of evidence in the assassination.

*  This is the same LIFE magazine that attempted to rationalize two contrary facts - Parkland assertions of a throat wound being one of entry, though sustained after JFK had passed the shooter - by falsely declaring as fact that the President had turned around to wave to well-wishers, thereby giving an assassin to his rear the chance to hit him in the front.

*  This is the same LIFE that financially subsidized CIA-backed anti-Castro exiles and sponsored CIA-backed raids upon that country.

Yet you assure us that LIFE was key in trying to educate the public on the "facts" of the assassination, while mocking the demonstrable truth that it was, for all intents and purposes, in CIA's pocket.  Dear boy, you grow more laughable by the day.

All I can do is tell you what I recall about those days working at LIFE.  A fuller account can be found in Richard Trask’s very excellent new book, National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film (Danvers, Mass.: Yeoman Press, 2005) pages 363-366.

In October 1966, I met with Loudon Wainwright, Dick Billings and Ed Kern in the Time/Life Building.  I never saw Wainwright again but Kern, Billings and I were very closely over the next couple of months.  In Dallas, we were helped by Patsy Swank, LIFE’s Dallas stringer. 

On November 25, 1966, an issue of LIFE carried a black cover with Zapruder frame 230 centered on it.  The cover asked in type that got progressively larger: “Amid controversy over the Warren Report Governor Connally examines for LIFE the Kennedy assassination film frame by frame... Did Oswald Act Alone?  A MATTER OF REASONABLE DOUBT.” As far as I know, this article was the first break in a virtual chorus of support from the establishment media for the Warren Report.

In the months I worked with Kern and Billings on the Kennedy case, I never got a whiff of any attempt to look the other way or not pursue the investigation aggressively.  When I wanted to talk with Dr. Boswell or Dr. Gregory, this was quickly worked out.  Look at CE 399 and other evidence in the Archives?  Sure.  Interview witnesses like Bill and Gayle Newman or Marilyn Sitzman?  You bet.  Spend some time with S.M. “Skinny” Holland?  Sure thing. 

At this time, there was blood in the water on this story.  Any journalist would have given his right arm to break open the Kennedy case.  Both in Dallas and New York we heard rumors that the New York Times had a ten or twelve investigator team in the field.  I think we all felt that this case was about to break open and we wanted to be the people who did it.  There was absolutely no attempt on the part of the management of LIFE to influence or restrict what we did.

On the other hand, I thought we had a stronger case than the one that got published on November 25th.  However, I don’t see this as an effect of senior management at LIFE trying to water down the story.  At that time, the practice of what has been called “committee journalism” at LIFE and TIME meant that something like a dozen people had to sign off on our article.  Institutionally, that sort of requirement leads necessarily to a watering down of the product.  “My God, what if we’re wrong about this?”  I can hear some middle-level editor asking.  The article could have been longer and it could have been more hard-hitting.  But neither of these effects resulted from management trying to cover up the truth.  If they had wanted to do that, they wouldn’t have shown Connally the Zapruder film in the first place.  They wouldn’t have had him pick out the frame when he was hit after Kennedy had been hit and thus kayo the single-bullet theory.

The following June, Berney Geis and I attempted to get permission to use frames from the film in Six Seconds.  At the same time CBS News wanted to use it in their four-part documentary.  We offered Time Inc. all commercial interest in the book.... that is, all author’s royalties and all publisher’s profits.  The Time Inc. Board of Directors turned down both CBS and us.  Geis and I consulted Doug Hamilton, a law professor at Columbia who recommended that we use artist’s renderings and not the frames themselves.  That’s what we did.  To this day, I think the turndown from the Time Inc. board flowed from the complexity of their business interest in the film and not from any attempt to suppress it.

With regard to the other incidents and claims Mr. Dunne makes, I wasn’t at LIFE at the time so I have no inside knowledge at all.

Mr. Dunne also mentions “a Z-film copy pilfered [from LIFE] by its own contractee, Josiah Thompson.”  This is rather mild.  James Fetzer, Ph.D., is claiming right now on another thread on this site (the one devoted to his silly book on the Wellstone crash) that my “stealing”the Zapruder film had something to do with me leaving Haverford twelve years later.

Actually, I’m rather proud of making copy of the Zapruder film in the Time/Life Building in November of 1966.  I’m happy to take credit for it and have done it again and again.  I testified before the ARRB about it.  I offered an oral history about it for the Sixth Floor Museum’s oral history.  Finally, I published an account of it in Richard Trask’s new book on the Zapruder film.  If there was anything about it that reflected badly on me, I probably should have shut up.  But I didn’t.  In any case, the reader can judge for himself/herself whether there was anything morally demeaning in what I did.  Here’s what happened as drawn from Trask’s new book:


“Early November 1966          I flew to Dallas and met Kern and Billings and Patsy Swank there. [Swank was a LIFE stringer who had originally let magazine personnel know about the existence of the Zapruder film.] Using 4" by 5" transparencies, we interviewed Dr. Charles Gregory who in 1963 had treated the wounded Governor John Connally.  We returned to the hotel leaving the transparencies with Henry Suydam, LIFE’s Miami bureau chief.  We returned from dinner to the hotel room.  I said I’d like to study the transparencies and take them to my room.  Before leaving the room, I inventoried the stack of transparencies and found that four (in the 230s) were missing.  They were present there when we showed the transparencies to Dr. Gregory.  I left the stack in the room.  I learned subsequently that the next morning Ed Kern distracted Henry Suydam while Billings searched Suydam’s room.  The missing transparencies were not found.”

“Mid-November 1966        I didn’t know what was going on.  I suspected that there was some power struggle at LIFE in motion, but I had not a clue what it was about and who was on what side.  I decided that it would be an extremely good idea for a good copy of the relevant frames to exist outside the Time-Life Building.  I put a 35 mm camera with a copying stand and 15 or so rolls of film in my brief case and went up to New York on the Thursday or Friday before the issue entitled “A Matter of Reasonable Doubt” closed.  Kern and Billings left by about 5:00 PM.  I stayed.  I set up my copying stand over the light table in Kern’s office and started copying the 4" by 5" transparencies.  Kern came back and said, “What’re you doing, Tink?”  I replied, “I’m copying some frames from the goddam film.  I need to study them down in Philadelphia.”  Kern said nothing and then left.  I spent the next two hours or so copying the remaining frames until my film was exhausted.  We learned in the lawsuit [later filed by Time Inc.] that the following Monday Kern told the editor of LIFE, George Hunt, that he had come back and found me copying the film.  Hunt later signed a consultancy contract with me which legally gave me permission to have a copy for my own research use. “

National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film by Richard B. Trask (Danvers, Massachusettes: Yeoman Press, 2005), pages 364-365.

[John Simkin]

With regard to the other incidents and claims Mr. Dunne makes, I wasn’t at LIFE at the time so I have no inside knowledge at all.

Mr. Dunne also mentions “a Z-film copy pilfered [from LIFE] by its own contractee, Josiah Thompson.”  This is rather mild.  James Fetzer, Ph.D., is claiming right now on another thread on this site (the one devoted to his silly book on the Wellstone crash) that my “stealing”the Zapruder film had something to do with me leaving Haverford twelve years later.

Actually, I’m rather proud of making copy of the Zapruder film in the Time/Life Building in November of 1966.  I’m happy to take credit for it and have done it again and again.  I testified before the ARRB about it.  I offered an oral history about it for the Sixth Floor Museum’s oral history.  Finally, I published an account of it in Richard Trask’s new book on the Zapruder film.  If there was anything about it that reflected badly on me, I probably should have shut up.  But I didn’t.  In any case, the reader can judge for himself/herself whether there was anything morally demeaning in what I did. 

Not at all, Tink.  If my wording was "mild," it was because I find nothing immoral about your actions at all.  Like all others who read "6 Seconds," I was thrilled that you had done so. 

However, that you felt the necessity to "liberate" a copy of the film's key frames demonstrates precisely what I had wished to draw to Tim Gratz's attention: far from being impartial seekers of a noble truth, LIFE did all in its power to ensure that its own readers would never seen the critical frames in their proper order; not even in their own august periodical, let alone in some book that called LIFE's own prior assertions into question.

I also am glad that you mentioned Ed Kern, Tink.  Vince Salandria, whom Tim Gratz has called all but insane in past posts, reached a far less benign conclusion about LIFE's motivations than you have done.  The following is an excerpt from a COPA symposium speech given by Vince, and I think it helps illustrate precisely the point I was raising for Tim Gratz's benefit:

We will now relate how Life magazine served our military-intelligence community. Time Inc., the owners of Life, bought the rights to the Zapruder film in 1963 and withheld it from public viewing. Please pardon me for not believing that this censorship was designed to enlighten our people. We shall see that Life both censored the Zapruder film and lied about its contents. In its September 6, 1964 issue Life sought to explain away the wound in President Kennedy's neck as follows:

...it has been hard to understand how the bullet could enter the front of his throat. Hence the recurring guess that there was a second sniper somewhere else. But the 8mm. film shows the President turning his body far around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat is exposed --- toward the sniper's nest- -just before he clutches it.

But we now know that the Zapruder film tells us that the President did not turn his body far around to the right, and that his throat was not exposed toward the alleged sniper's nest. So Life was not only censoring the Zapruder film, but while having it in its sole possession, was lying about its content and therefore obstructing justice through censorship and falsification of the Zapruder film's content.

My October 2nd, 1964 issue of Life magazine contained a color reproduction of frame 313 of the 8 millimeter Zapruder motion picture showing the moment of bullet impact on President Kennedy's skull. The caption for that Zapruder frame read: "The assassins shot struck the right rear portion of the President's skull, causing a massive wound and snapping of his head to one side." To me it appeared that striking a head from the rear and causing it to snap to one side ran counter to a Newton law of motion. So, I decided to collect oher copies of the same issue of Life.

In the next copy I acquired I found that Life had changed the caption to read: "The direction from which shots came was established by this picture taken at instant bullet struck the rear of the President's head, and passing through, caused the front part of his skull to explode forward." But in this copy of the magazine Life had changed the Zapruder frame to a later one which showed that the President's whole body had been driven not only leftward but also backwards against the back seat of the limousine by a shot supposedly fired from the rear. That frame with that caption impressed me as causing even more difficulty for the Warren Report.

The next copy of Life that I found put together the exploding-forward caption with Zapruder frame 313. Life finally got the deception right. I reported these findings in my March, 1965 articles in Liberation magazine.

Later, in 1966, I inquired of Life about the three versions of the same issue. Edward Kern, a Life editor, replied in a letter to me dated November 28, 1966. In his reply he said: "I am at a loss to explain the discrepancies between the three versions of LIFE which you cite. I've heard of breaking a plate to correct an error. Ive never heard of doing it twice for a single issue, much less a single story."

Well, unlike Edward Kern, I was not at a loss to explain the three versions. To me the three versions of Life and Life's lies about what the Zapruder film revealed show in microcosm an elegant example of how the U.S. media criminally joined with U.S. governmental civilian personages, and with the national security state apparatus to employ deceit in seeking to prop up the Warren Report.

Henry R. Luce created Life magazine. He was an ardent Cold Warrior having championed the American Century and having lobbied for the National Security Act of 1947. His widow, Claire Booth Luce, was a former member of the House of Representatives and a former ambassador to Italy. She was one of Allen Dulles' lovers. In his book, The Last Investigation, my dear friend, Gaeton Fonzi, who worked for U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker while the Senator was investigating the Kennedy assassination, told how Claire Booth Luce lead them on a wild goose chase. She effectively used up their governmentally-paid-for time by sending them on a fruitless search for fanciful persons.

Congressman Gerald R. Ford, who had been a Warren Commissioner, and who was later to become President, signed that October 2, 1964 Life article. He concluded this article with the following statement: "This report is the truth as we see it, as best we know it, and on this, we rest."

The three versions of Life demonstrate clearly the criminal conspiratorial joining together of the U.S. intelligence community, the civilian aspects of our government, and our media to support the Warren Report. They were and still are all in bed together.

If Tim Gratz still believes LIFE magazine to have been an impartial and objective observer/reporter of events, rather than a dedicated accessory to the crime after the fact, it is only because he knows nothing about LIFE, its history, or its deeds.  Which hardly makes LIFE a unique topic; it's only one of multitude of topics about which he knows nothing, but about which he concludes much.

[John Simkin]

Lee described his reason for having so many post boxes as being that it was easier for him to have mail redirected as he moved than to for example notify address changes to subscriptions he had. One magazine he subscribed to was Time. After the assassination, in the post box in the Dealey Plaza Post Office that he had only had for a month or so, Harry the postal Inspector in keeping a close watch on it only found one item in it : A copy of Time with the cottect post box address, not redirected. As it was one of the last issues in that subscription it means that in this instance he DID notify directly of an address change. Wheteher this means anything, I don't know. *

Also, 20 years or so ago I had a friend I've since lost touch with, who had moved to Australia from Indonesia. One thing he told me was of his surprise in reading Australian versions of Time issues he had read in Indonesia just how much he had 'missed out on'.

I'm going go to the local library and check the October issue of the Austaralian or International Time copy this week and see what it says.

EDIT:: * There are from memory 8 cities mentioned as ones where the illegal CIA FBI Postal Inspection Service mail opening operations were happening. One of three that I have seen named is New Orleans.

Given that Lee notified Time magazine of his change of address to Dallas, and that it is extremely likey that his mail was being monitored then it seems reasonable to assume that not only was Lees location on record at Time but also that the agencies were aware of it. This is quite apart from any other (of which there are) indications that they were aware. In other words all up I think it's fair to say that they knew. Whether or not Luce knew of this Time subscription or if the info stayed put in the Time mailing list is another question. Perhaps the fact that no such record has previously been mentioned is an indicator.

I can't be of much use in explaining the various versions of this caption.  I was working for LIFE at the time of the Salandria letter.  In fact, I think I got Vince's letter to Ed Kern.  Kern was a feature writer for LIFE, and, prior to September 1966 had had nothing to do with the JFK shooting.  He was not the guy to ask about various versions of a caption and told Vince what he knew.  If memory serves, Dick Stolley was asked the same question and gave pretty much the same answer as Ed Kern gave.

It is a fact that there were several versions of this caption.  Apparently, you are inclined to believe that the various captions were part of a plan on LIFE's part to keep the facts of the Zapruder film from the American public.  I really don't have an opinion on the question because I haven't looked into it.  If I said anything about an editor being confused or their being confusion at the magazine about what was on the Zapruder film, you would claim I am some sort of apologist for LIFE or a fellow traveler for intelligence agencies.  I worked for LIFE as a consultant for about four months.  They sued me and made certain that all the earnings of "Six Seconds" would be used up in lawyer's bills.  So I have no particular love for LIFE or any reason to defend them.  All I can tell you is that I worked with group of very highly motivated journalists and we weren't restricted in what we did by higher authority at the magazine.

As for Vince Salandria... he is one of the real heros of the critical community.  His early work in "Liberation" and "The Minority of One" laid out the path that we would all follow later on.  Without Vince, I would not have gotten involved in the case.  On the other hand, his later theorizing that Bill Turner, John Newman, the ACLU and I are all being directed by some intelligence agency is looney-tunes.

Robert wrote:

That various media paid attention to the assassination several years later is no mystery: the public wasn't buying into the mythology presented by Warren, et al, and the Garrison investigation galvanized public interest in the assassination, necessitating a media response.

While I don't disagree with your use of the virtual cat-o'-nine-tails on the media, I believe your chronology in this one instance is in error.  The LIFE A Matter of Reasonable Doubt issue was out in November, 1966...and the details of Garrison's investigation didn't seep into the media--or the American consciousness--to any great extent before January, 1967.  So, to be accurate, the Garrison investigation didn't do anything to "necessitate" a media response in November, 1966, because it was operating below the radar until January, 1967.

Otherwise, I believe you're pretty well on the money as far as having the media "Tied to the whippin' post" [Allman Brothers Band reference, in case you missed it].  They deserve it.

[Tim Gratz]

Life could hardly be a part of a cover-up conspiracy elst it would never have published the famous "A Case of Reasonable Doubt" issue. And Mr. Thompson has written that Life gave him (and other researchers?) carte blanche to attempt to solve the crime of the century. As Mr. Thompson wrote, to the effect, any journalist would have given his eye tooth to solve the assassination. Of course, CBS News, on the other hand, tried to justify the WC Report.

This post has been edited by Tim Gratz: Sep 27 2005, 12:26 PM

[Robin Unger]

"Clay Shaw trial"

The 10-missing Zapruder Frames:


http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5029

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Not unlike court testimony, one merely does not have to tell "all they know".

This neither constitutes perjury nor conspiracy.

Merely, not providing all the information which one has available.

And, if not asked the proper and correct question, then highly unlikely the answer with either provide the information sought, or even the correct information.

Tom

P.S. Very little actual survey work was done for the WC re-enactment of the assassination, as most of the accurate data regarding Dealy Plaza had been long prior determined during the Time/Life survey work of 11/25 & 11/26 1963, and the SS survey work of 12/5/63

This post has been edited by Thomas H. Purvis: Oct 6 2005, 08:54 PM

[David G. Healy]

Not unlike court testimony, one merely does not have to tell "all they know".

This neither constitutes  perjury nor conspiracy.

Merely, not providing all the information which one has available.

And, if not asked the proper and correct question, then highly unlikely the answer with either provide the information sought, or even the correct information.

Tom

P.S.  Very little actual survey work was done for the WC re-enactment of the assassination, as most of the accurate data regarding Dealy Plaza had been long prior determined during the Time/Life survey work of 11/25 & 11/26 1963, and the SS survey work of 12/5/63

tnx, Tom

DHealy

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Not unlike court testimony, one merely does not have to tell "all they know".

This neither constitutes  perjury nor conspiracy.

Merely, not providing all the information which one has available.

And, if not asked the proper and correct question, then highly unlikely the answer with either provide the information sought, or even the correct information.

Tom

P.S.  Very little actual survey work was done for the WC re-enactment of the assassination, as most of the accurate data regarding Dealy Plaza had been long prior determined during the Time/Life survey work of 11/25 & 11/26 1963, and the SS survey work of 12/5/63

tnx, Tom

DHealy

No Problem!

There are other pages as well (somewhere).

In event you (or anyone else) have questions related to this data, just ask.

Tom

[Chris Cox]

This is a hard thread to follow through the bickering. My question may have been answered but-- someone, anyone tell me why LIFE/via Swank and CD got the film in the first place? Heck with tampering theory yea or nay, how did this evidence get out of the hands of the investigation? Shouldn't the camera and its contents have been placed in a sterile bag out of reach of any commercial interest? LIFE is there-why? The Z-family wins a reward and the film becomes a bit part in a movie that stuns the nation into records releases.

My own experience with LIFE and my father's disappearance led me down many paths. The first led to reporter Andy St. G. who told me some background but not all. The article about my father in LIFE is third-person, Andy was the photographer, someone wrote a story, fine. Years of this later, using LIFE article as a touchstone, I found the article shallow, all facts around it were not "in." Andy told me a CBS guy was present for the story with other reporters, and others...all in all, maybe twenty or more involved in this mission of a lone nut. Perhaps somewhere in this small story is a clue to what LIFE was all about.

[John Simkin]

Once, on this Forum, several months ago, someone claimed that when you were working on the assassination for "Life" magazine it was not a serious attempt to solve the assassination (because "Life" was supposedly under the control of the CIA).  I recall that "Life" was one of the first major media to raise questions about the Warren Commission.  I am sure many people in the US first began to doubt the Warren Commission because of "Life" magazine.

It should be pointed out that Henry Luce owned Life Magazine. Several journalists, including Carl Bernstein, Deborah Davis, Michael Hasty, Mary Louise, Alex Constantine have claimed that Luce was a key figure in Operation Mockingbird:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm

Luce made sure that both Life and Time reported the CIA view of world events. This included attacking Joe McCarthy after he made the mistake of announcing he planned to expose left-wingers in the CIA (Frank Wisner, Cord Meyer, Tracy Barnes, etc.)

Luce was extremely hostile to JFK. However, his media empire was unable to prevent JFK being elected to power in 1960. Before JFK’s inauguration Luce made it clear who he should appoint as Secretary of State. According to David Halberstram (The Powers That Be, pages 493-94) Luce “took credit for the selection of Dean Rusk” and made it “clear that he would tolerate no softening of the line on Communism”.

Luce, like other key right-wing media figures such as William Paley (CBS) Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services), Phil Graham (Washington Post) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor), were particularly concerned about JFK’s policy towards Cuba.

In 1963 Luce, via two journalists working for Life Magazine, Dick Billings and Terry Spencer, became involved in funding the William Pawley/ Eddie Bayo Mission (Operation Tilt). This was an attempt to obtain evidence in order to help Goldwater defeat JFK in 1964.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtilt.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PHOTOtilt2.htm

Luce’s wife, Clare Boothe Luce, was also involved in anti-Castro politics. This included the funding of Alpha 66. In 1962 and 1963 this group of exiles launched several raids on Cuba and took part in several plots to assassinate Castro. Luce confessed to her role in these activities to Richard Schweiker during the HSCA investigations (Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, pages 53-54, 58-59). Fonzi reveals that Luce provided false names for these men she described as “my boys”.

Luce was also very close to David Atlee Phillips and was on the Board of Directors of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKluceC.htm

Henry Luce also arranged for Time-Life to purchase of the Zapruder film for $150,000. It published individual frames but did not allow the film to be screened in its entirety. I suspect that Luce purchased this film on behalf of the CIA in an attempt to keep it out of the public domain (it was shown to the public for the first time in March, 1975).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKzapruderF.htm

Soon after the assassination Time-Life also successfully negotiated with Marina Oswald the exclusive rights to her story. In this way they were able to control what Marina had to say about the case. Once again, I suspect Luce did this on behalf of his friends at the CIA.

Tim is right that Life Magazine did begin to question the findings of the Warren Commission. The main person used to do this was Dick Billings of Operation Tilt fame. Billings was the son of John Shaw Billings, the first managing director of Life Magazine.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbillings.htm

The timing of these articles is very significant. It was during the Jim Garrison investigations. In November 1966 Jim Garrison told a journalist, David Chandler, that he had important information on the case. Chandler told Billings and in January 1967, the Life Magazine reporter arranged a meeting with Garrison. Billings told Garrison that the top management at Life had concluded that Kennedy's assassination had been a conspiracy and that "his investigation was moving in the right direction". Billings suggested that he worked closely with Garrison. According to Garrison "The magazine would be able to provide me with technical assistance, and we could develop a mutual exchange of information".
Garrison agreed to this deal and Billings was introduced to staff member, Tom Bethal. In his diary Bethal reported: "In general, I feel that Billings and I share a similar position about the Warren Report. He does not believe that there was a conspiracy on the part of the government, the Warren Commission or the FBI to conceal the truth, but that a probability exists that they simply did not uncover the whole truth." Billings managed to persuade Bethal that Clay Shaw was innocent. Later it was revealed by W. Penn Jones that "Bethal made the entire trial plan, a complete list of State's witnesses and their expected testimony and other materials available to the Shaw defense team."

In September, 1967, Billings told Jim Garrison that Life Magazine was no longer willing to work with him in the investigation. Billings claimed that this was because he had come to the conclusion that he had links to organized crime. Soon afterwards, Life began a smear campaign against Garrison. It was reported that Garrison had been given money by an unnamed "New Orleans mobster".
I believe that Billings was involved in an attempt to subvert Garrison’s investigations. It was at this time that the CIA had decided that they could no longer maintain the lone gunman story. Instead, they were leaking information to implicate the Mafia in the killing of JFK.

It is no coincidence that Billings is recruited by G. Robert Blakey as editorial director of the HSCA report. In other words, the final report was under the control of the CIA. Later Billings and Blakey were the co-authors of The Plot to Kill the President (1981). Carl Oglesby summarized Blakey and Billings theory as follows:

(1) Oswald alone did shoot and kill J.F.K., as the Warren Commission deduced.

(2) An unknown confederate of Oswald's, however, also shot at the President, firing from the celebrated "grassy knoll." This shot missed.

(3) Apart from the question of the number of assailants in the attack, Oswald acted as the tool of a much larger conspiracy.

(4) The conspiracy behind Oswald was rooted in organized crime and was specifically provoked by J.F.K.'s anti-crime program. Singly or in some combination, prime suspects are Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante, godfathers respectively of the New Orleans and Tampa Mafias, and Teamster racketeer James Hoffa. Each one had the motive, means, and opportunity to kill J.F.K.

Sound familiar? Yes it is the story that Tim Gratz likes to promote (when he is not pushing the Castro/KGB theory). No wonder he believes that Life Magazine played an innocent role in the cover-up of the assassination of JFK.

[Pat Speer]

Sound familiar? Yes it is the story that Tim Gratz likes to promote (when he is not pushing the Castro/KGB theory). No wonder he believes that Life Magazine played an innocent role in the cover-up of the assassination of JFK.

If I jump in right here perhaps I can prevent Tim from jumping in and crying foul. (Even I find his belly-achng hard to stomach sometimes.) As I understand it, his fall-back theory does not have Oswald as a mob-hired hitman. It has Oswald as a patsy, just like most of our theories. I understand this theory, and consider it far more likely than the KGB or Castro scenarios. The main difference between the theories of most of us on this Forum and Tim's theory is that Tim finds it easier to believe the decision to kill Kennedy came from the mob than from the CIA, or any other aspect of the government. This tendency is not as uncommon as some on this Forum seem to believe. While 80% of Americans believe Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy only 50% of those believe the CIA was behind it. The 40% of Americans who suspect someone other than the CIA are not all disinformation agents.

There is a tendency among Americans (and Tim is nothing if not an American) to want to believe in American institutions. This is particularly true of those whose livelihoods and careers are tied up in the "system." While the American media likes to portray the sixties as liberal college kids and intellectuals stopping a war that the great unwashed were stupidly going along with, the TRUTH of the situation was that the main supporters of the war were the wealthy, and educated, and that the greatest resistance to the war came from the poorest neighborhoods, whose sons were coming home in the same giant shipping casket Kennedy's corpse disappeared into. The educated choose to forget this. Similarly, as revealed by Vincent Salandria to Calvin Trillin, the most avid support for the Warren Commission's findings, and the strongest resistance to the critics, came from the LEFT, who couldn't stand the idea of their hero Warren being party to a cover-up.

So...I find the behavior of Billings, Bethal, and Life Magazine completely understandable. They couldn't stomach the thought of Garrison using the tragic death of Kennedy to undermine American institutions, and decided to try to do something about it. They tried to expose him for what he was: reckless and ambitious. Unfortunately, in their zeal to shut up the crying baby in the theater, they threw out the mother with the nicest (bosom). Time has shown that Garrison was onto something. The problem was he didn't even know what he was onto, and kept changing his story, and knocked the credibility of the critical community down a peg in the process.

In short, I don't believe Life Magazine was taking orders from anybody. When they turned on Garrison they did it for their own reasons. While, to a foreign observer, their playing ball with the government when it suited their purpose might seem the stuff of conspiracy, the fact is, it's how the game is played, and has been played, since Hearst and his writers started the Spanish-American War and made a hero out of Teddy R. They're meddlers... not just reporting, but making the news...

[John Dolva]

The first five covers here are for the month of November 1963, ending with a cover of Nov 29.
[attachment=3404:attachment]
The last cover is from when Kennedy was elected president.

This post has been edited by John Dolva: Sep 29 2005, 06:41 PM

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Sound familiar? Yes it is the story that Tim Gratz likes to promote (when he is not pushing the Castro/KGB theory). No wonder he believes that Life Magazine played an innocent role in the cover-up of the assassination of JFK.

If I jump in right here perhaps I can prevent Tim from jumping in and crying foul. (Even I find his belly-achng hard to stomach sometimes.) As I understand it, his fall-back theory does not have Oswald as a mob-hired hitman. It has Oswald as a patsy, just like most of our theories. I understand this theory, and consider it far more likely than the KGB or Castro scenarios. The main difference between the theories of most of us on this Forum and Tim's theory is that Tim finds it easier to believe the decision to kill Kennedy came from the mob than from the CIA, or any other aspect of the government. This tendency is not as uncommon as some on this Forum seem to believe. While 80% of Americans believe Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy only 50% of those believe the CIA was behind it. The 40% of Americans who suspect someone other than the CIA are not all disinformation agents.

There is a tendency among Americans (and Tim is nothing if not an American) to want to believe in American institutions. This is particularly true of those whose livelihoods and careers are tied up in the "system." While the American media likes to portray the sixties as liberal college kids and intellectuals stopping a war that the great unwashed were stupidly going along with, the TRUTH of the situation was that the main supporters of the war were the wealthy, and educated, and that the greatest resistance to the war came from the poorest neighborhoods, whose sons were coming home in the same giant shipping casket Kennedy's corpse disappeared into. The educated choose to forget this. Similarly, as revealed by Vincent Salandria to Calvin Trillin, the most avid support for the Warren Commission's findings, and the strongest resistance to the critics, came from the LEFT, who couldn't stand the idea of their hero Warren being party to a cover-up.

So...I find the behavior of Billings, Bethal, and Life Magazine completely understandable. They couldn't stomach the thought of Garrison using the tragic death of Kennedy to undermine American institutions, and decided to try to do something about it. They tried to expose him for what he was: reckless and ambitious. Unfortunately, in their zeal to shut up the crying baby in the theater, they threw out the mother with the nicest (bosom). Time has shown that Garrison was onto something. The problem was he didn't even know what he was onto, and kept changing his story, and knocked the credibility of the critical community down a peg in the process.

In short, I don't believe Life Magazine was taking orders from anybody. When they turned on Garrison they did it for their own reasons. While, to a foreign observer, their playing ball with the government when it suited their purpose might seem the stuff of conspiracy, the fact is, it's how the game is played, and has been played, since Hearst and his writers started the Spanish-American War and made a hero out of Teddy R. They're meddlers... not just reporting, but making the news...

Clay Shaw--aka--------Sharkbait

Those in New Orleans who placed Shaw up for sacrifice knew exactly what they were doing as well as "who" they were doing it to.

Not unlike the "Klein's" Sporting Goods order for the rifle, the persons certainly knew how to make other entities "run for cover".

When one attempts to recover stolen NAZI Art treasure from the "Rich & the Famous", then one should not venture into shark infested waters.

Not to mention the trouble one can get into when delving into "I. G. Farber".

Tom

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Sound familiar? Yes it is the story that Tim Gratz likes to promote (when he is not pushing the Castro/KGB theory). No wonder he believes that Life Magazine played an innocent role in the cover-up of the assassination of JFK.

If I jump in right here perhaps I can prevent Tim from jumping in and crying foul. (Even I find his belly-achng hard to stomach sometimes.) As I understand it, his fall-back theory does not have Oswald as a mob-hired hitman. It has Oswald as a patsy, just like most of our theories. I understand this theory, and consider it far more likely than the KGB or Castro scenarios. The main difference between the theories of most of us on this Forum and Tim's theory is that Tim finds it easier to believe the decision to kill Kennedy came from the mob than from the CIA, or any other aspect of the government. This tendency is not as uncommon as some on this Forum seem to believe. While 80% of Americans believe Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy only 50% of those believe the CIA was behind it. The 40% of Americans who suspect someone other than the CIA are not all disinformation agents.

There is a tendency among Americans (and Tim is nothing if not an American) to want to believe in American institutions. This is particularly true of those whose livelihoods and careers are tied up in the "system." While the American media likes to portray the sixties as liberal college kids and intellectuals stopping a war that the great unwashed were stupidly going along with, the TRUTH of the situation was that the main supporters of the war were the wealthy, and educated, and that the greatest resistance to the war came from the poorest neighborhoods, whose sons were coming home in the same giant shipping casket Kennedy's corpse disappeared into. The educated choose to forget this. Similarly, as revealed by Vincent Salandria to Calvin Trillin, the most avid support for the Warren Commission's findings, and the strongest resistance to the critics, came from the LEFT, who couldn't stand the idea of their hero Warren being party to a cover-up.

So...I find the behavior of Billings, Bethal, and Life Magazine completely understandable. They couldn't stomach the thought of Garrison using the tragic death of Kennedy to undermine American institutions, and decided to try to do something about it. They tried to expose him for what he was: reckless and ambitious. Unfortunately, in their zeal to shut up the crying baby in the theater, they threw out the mother with the nicest (bosom). Time has shown that Garrison was onto something. The problem was he didn't even know what he was onto, and kept changing his story, and knocked the credibility of the critical community down a peg in the process.

In short, I don't believe Life Magazine was taking orders from anybody. When they turned on Garrison they did it for their own reasons. While, to a foreign observer, their playing ball with the government when it suited their purpose might seem the stuff of conspiracy, the fact is, it's how the game is played, and has been played, since Hearst and his writers started the Spanish-American War and made a hero out of Teddy R. They're meddlers... not just reporting, but making the news...

C. D. Jackson (Charles Douglas Jackson)-----Administrative Assistant for Psychological Warfare Operations, to President Dwight Eisenhower.


April 22, 1960*


"Dear C.D.:"

"Yesterday on the plane I had an opportunity to read two of your letters of the eighteenth and as always , found much of interest in your ideas."

"Meantime, the important thing is the congratulations that are deservedly due you. I can well understand the job of publisher of Life will be a demanding one, but at the same time I know that you have energy abundant--and more--for such a task."


Dwight Eisenhower

Charles Douglas (C.D.) Jackson resigned from his position with President Eisenhower in 1954, to return to his publishing responsibilities at Time-Life, Inc.

After his return to private life, Eisenhower would continue to call on Jackson from time to time for special assignments.


*On the preceeding day, (April 21, 1960) in a shift involving fifteen executives, Time, Inc., had announced the appointment of Jackson, from administrative Vice-President, to Publisher of Life. (New York Times, April 22, 1960)

[John Simkin]

There is a tendency among Americans (and Tim is nothing if not an American) to want to believe in American institutions. This is particularly true of those whose livelihoods and careers are tied up in the "system."  While the American media likes to portray the sixties as liberal college kids and intellectuals stopping a war that the great unwashed were stupidly going along with, the TRUTH of the situation was that the main supporters of the war were the wealthy, and educated, and that the greatest resistance to the war came from the poorest neighborhoods, whose sons were coming home in the same giant shipping casket Kennedy's corpse disappeared into.  The educated choose to forget this.  Similarly, as revealed by Vincent Salandria  to Calvin Trillin, the most avid support for the Warren Commission's findings, and the strongest resistance to the critics, came from the LEFT, who couldn't stand the idea of their hero Warren being party to a cover-up.

If that is the case the LEFT in America did not know anything about Warren. True he was hated by the right because of his support for civil rights. However, he was never on the LEFT. For example, he first came to notice in the late 1930s in his struggle with Culbert Olsen, the Governor of California. Olsen was indeed on the left. One of the first things he did was to pardon Tom Mooney and Warren Billings. These were two left-wing trade union leaders who had been convicted of a bombing which occurred in San Francisco in 1916. Although strong evidence existed that the District Attorney of the time, Charles Fickert, had framed Mooney, previous governors had refused to order their release.

As a member of the state Judicial Qualifications Commission, Warren blocked confirmation of the Olsen's nominee to the state Supreme Court, Max Radin, a man he considered to be too radical for this post.

See the following:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAolsonCB.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmooney.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbillingsW.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwarren.htm

Warren also upset liberals and supporters of human rights by the role he played in dealing with people of Japanese descent during the Second World War. Most of these people lived in California. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, these people were classified as enemy aliens. Warren, as attorney general, urged that these people should be interned.

On 29th January 1942, the U.S. Attorney General, Francis Biddle, established a number of security areas on the West Coast in California. He also announced that all enemy aliens should be removed from these security areas. Three weeks later President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the construction of relocation camps for Japanese Americans being moved from their homes.

Over the next few months ten permanent camps were constructed to house more than 110,000 Japanese Americans that had been removed from security areas. These people were deprived of their homes, their jobs and their constitutional and legal rights.

Warren hoped to become the Republican Party's candidate in the 1952 presidential election. He lost out to Dwight D. Eisenhower who went on to become president. Warren was rewarded for his loyalty by being appointed by Eisenhower to the post of chief justice of Supreme Court.

Warren had always been a supporter of the status quo. It was in this role that he did what Eisenhower told him (he had acted in the same way under Roosevelt and he was later to do the same under LBJ.

Eisenhower was opposed to segregation in America's schools (mainly because of the way it was being presented in the world's press - at the time the Deep South was being compared to Nazi Germany. As a result, Warren became a target of right-wing groups. Robert Welch, the leader of the John Birch Society, described Warren as being a member of a Communist conspiracy. Other white supremacists such as George Wallace and James Eastland joined in these attacks. At one rally in Los Angeles there were calls for Warren to be lynched. This did not make Warren a man of the left. Nor was JFK a man of the left when he was being attacked by the John Birch Society.

The left in Europe were never fooled by this propaganda campaign against Warren. Nor did they ever buy the lone gunman theory.

So...I find the behavior of Billings, Bethal, and Life Magazine completely understandable.  They couldn't stomach the thought of Garrison using the tragic death of Kennedy to undermine American institutions, and decided to try to do something about it.  They tried to expose him for what he was: reckless and ambitious.  Unfortunately, in their zeal to shut up the crying baby in the theater, they  threw out the mother with the nicest (bosom).  Time has shown that Garrison was onto something.  The problem was he didn't even know what he was onto, and kept changing his story, and knocked the credibility of the critical community down a peg in the process.

In short, I don't believe Life Magazine was taking orders from anybody.  When they turned on Garrison they did it for their own reasons. While, to a foreign observer, their playing ball with the government when it suited their purpose might seem the stuff of conspiracy, the fact is, it's how the game is played, and has been played, since Hearst and his writers started the Spanish-American War and made a hero out of Teddy R.  They're meddlers... not just reporting, but making the news...

One has to understand that Henry Luce's support for the CIA dates back to the late 1940s. Also, how do you explain Operation Tilt and Luce's support of Alpha 66? This was not a case of Luce supporting the institution of the presidency.

I think one of the major problems that the American people have difficulty believing is that they do not have a free press. They are willing to believe that JFK was killed by the Mafia. What they can't grasp is the fact that the American government, via the media, have controlled the way they see the world. The JFK assassination is just one example of this. The Iraq War is just the latest example. That is why Operation Mockingbird is such an important topic. Once the American people have grasped this, they will begin to be able to see the world afresh.