First Article from NY Times on Warren Report

[Michaleen Kilroy]

Just happened to come across this NY Times article on the day the Warren Report was released:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0927.html#article

Thought it might be interesting to see how much it got wrong. I’ll start:

”The commission also rejected, after complete access to the files of the F.B.I. and the Central Intelligence Agency, the claim that Oswald may have been some kind of American undercover agent.

[James DiEugenio]

HA HA HA

BTW, at the 30th anniversary on Nightline, nut case David Belin said that he had seen every CIA file dealing with Oswald.

At a Chicago seminar that year, Eddie Lopez snickered as he repeated that.  Burt Griffin was there and he added, "Well, I tend to disagree with David myself sometimes."

 

[Michaleen Kilroy]

35 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

HA HA HA

BTW, at the 30th anniversary on Nightline, nut case David Belin said that he had seen every CIA file dealing with Oswald.

At a Chicago seminar that year, Eddie Lopez snickered as he repeated that.  Burt Griffin was there and he added, "Well, I tend to disagree with David myself sometimes."

 

Yeah it’s amazing to me how breathlessly the writer accepts every conclusion with nary a note of journalistic skepticism.  I think much of the media thought that their blind acceptance of the WR was in the best interests of the country. It wasn’t.

[James DiEugenio]

The more one reads that story the funnier it gets.

Lewis writes that experts traced the trajectories of the bullets.

How can you trace the bullet trajectories if none of the wounds in Kennedy were dissected?  That is just pure malarkey.  And Lewis fell for it.

It then says that the verdict was unanimous.  Not knowing that the troika of Dulles, McCloy and Ford tricked Russell at the last meeting.

It then actually quotes the report about Oswald's motive.  Not knowing that this was Liebeler who wrote that part, and that decades later he admitted, he didn't have the slightest idea as to what he was talking about.

The NY Times was flying blind. And three years later, they were going to get the carpet pulled out underneath their feet. 

Edited July 14, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Michaleen Kilroy]

Yeah this one’s a knee-slapper, too:

...the commission analyzed every issued in exhaustive, almost archeological detail....-Witnesses here and abroad testified to the most obscure points.

Except they neglected to interview the closest civilians to the shooting - the Newmans - who thought the final shot whizzed near their heads from the grassy knoll.

And they never deposed Dr. George Burkley, JFK’s personal physician and the only medically trained person at both Parkland and the autopsy. How could that ovsrsight have happened in such an unassailable investigation? He didn’t agree with the single bullet theory of course: 

http://22november1963.org.uk/richard-sprague-memo-dr-george-burkley

[James DiEugenio]

And the thing is, when JFK came out, Lewis was a prime attacker of the film. 

Well, if you wrote crapola like this back in 1964, its understandable.

Edited July 14, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

I think it was Barbie Zeilizer in her book who said that the JFK case illustrated the failure of the media to handle a complex subject.

 

I think she also added that it showed the first real crevice between the MSM and the public on a major issue.

[Michaleen Kilroy]

5 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I think it was Barbie Zeilizer in her book who said that the JFK case illustrated the failure of the media to handle a complex subject.

 

I think she also added that it showed the first real crevice between the MSM and the public on a major issue.

I don’t think there was a major event covered like this in modern US history. The MSM acted more like accomplices. And still do.

My mantra these days is the JFKA is still a crime in progress.

[Michaleen Kilroy]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

And the thing is, when JFK came out, Lewis was a prime attacker of the film. 

Well, if you wrote crapola like this back in 1964, its understandable.

Didn’t know that. Guess he never wanted to question his conclusions based in limited information from the govt - not a journalistic thing to do.

[W. Niederhut]

From what I can find, Anthony Lewis was one of NYT's best journalists at the time-- a two time Pulitzer Prize winner from Harvard, who was best known for his coverage of judicial issues.

So, this Warren Commission Report article probably wasn't a case of shoddy journalism per se.

I don't recall whether Carl Bernstein mentioned Anthony Lewis as a contract journalist for Operation Mockingbird (in Bernstein's Church Committee era article about the CIA and the U.S. media in Rolling Stone.)

The fact that he panned Oliver Stone's movie, JFK, speaks volumes.

[Joseph McBride]

I saw a NIGHTLINE show in which Ted Koppel claimed the Zapruder

film was the only film shot of the assassination. There were at least

ten filmmakers and a lot of still photographers shooting parts of the scene.

Penn Jones once wondered rhetorically "how so many smart men can be so stupid."

The answer is that in the US, stupidity is often rewarded, and smartness is often punished.

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Joseph McBride

[Gene Kelly]

Anthony Lewis does not fill the profile of a compromised or biased journalist.

Lewis became a member of Senator Robert Kennedy's social circle, conspicuously so in the opinion of other editors.  Lewis published the 1964 novel, Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution, about the civil rights movement.  He was an expert on the Supreme Court and said to have invented legal journalism ... in 1991, he published Make No Law, an account of 1964 Supreme Court decision that revolutionized American libel law. The Times moved Lewis to London in 1964, where he was bureau chief with responsibility for broad coverage of politics, culture and, in the words of one editor, "ballet, music, Glyndebourne, la-di-da London society, diplomacy, the British character, you name it".  He moved to New York in 1969 and began writing a twice-weekly opinion column for the Times under the heading "At Home Abroad", until retiring in 2001. Though wide-ranging in his interests, he often focused on legal questions, advocacy of compromise between Israel and the Palestinians, and criticism of the war in Vietnam and the apartheid regime in South Africa. On December 15, 2001, his final column warned that civil liberties were at risk in the U.S. reaction to the 911 attacks.  Reflecting on his years as a columnist, he said he had learned two lessons:

One is that certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and (then-Attorney General) John Ashcroft. And secondly that for this country at least, given the kind of obstreperous, populous, diverse country we are, law is the absolute essential. And when governments short-cut the law, it's extremely dangerous.

[Michaleen Kilroy]

40 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:

Anthony Lewis does not fill the profile of a compromised or biased journalist.

Lewis became a member of Senator Robert Kennedy's social circle, conspicuously so in the opinion of other editors.  Lewis published the 1964 novel, Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution, about the civil rights movement.  He was an expert on the Supreme Court and said to have invented legal journalism ... in 1991, he published Make No Law, an account of 1964 Supreme Court decision that revolutionized American libel law. The Times moved Lewis to London in 1964, where he was bureau chief with responsibility for broad coverage of politics, culture and, in the words of one editor, "ballet, music, Glyndebourne, la-di-da London society, diplomacy, the British character, you name it".  He moved to New York in 1969 and began writing a twice-weekly opinion column for the Times under the heading "At Home Abroad", until retiring in 2001. Though wide-ranging in his interests, he often focused on legal questions, advocacy of compromise between Israel and the Palestinians, and criticism of the war in Vietnam and the apartheid regime in South Africa. On December 15, 2001, his final column warned that civil liberties were at risk in the U.S. reaction to the 911 attacks.  Reflecting on his years as a columnist, he said he had learned two lessons:

One is that certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and (then-Attorney General) John Ashcroft. And secondly that for this country at least, given the kind of obstreperous, populous, diverse country we are, law is the absolute essential. And when governments short-cut the law, it's extremely dangerous.

As stated previously, like a lot of good reporters, Lewis ‘got weird’ over the JFKA case.

You don’t have to support a conspiracy to not write about the many flaws in the official investigation that came out over the years, including:

- ignoring Ruby’s mob ties

- ignoring the CIA’s lies and obstruction over its relationship with DRE during the time of LHO as well as working with the mob to whack Castro

- ignoring the FBI’s laissez-faire ‘investigation’

- the lack of any independent psychiatric analysis of LHO versus the armchair ‘psychologists’ of the WC

- the fact that none of the occupants of the presidential car remember the shots as described in the official investigation 

- the fact that at least 3 members of the WC ended up disagreeing with its conclusions 

- Sylvia Odio’s compelling testimony 

- And speaking of the law, Lewis should have been doubly pissed that the suspect was murdered in police custody and the govt saw fit to write a prosecutor’s brief with ZERO defense arguments.

The MSM has NEVER taken a critical view of the official story - that fact alone should tell u there’s something strange going on.  They must have felt if they acknowledged one single flaw the official story would lose ALL public support.

That’s because at some level avoiding the case’s many anomalies is fundamental to the continuing stability of the country. Why that is I have no idea. But I can guess...

 

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Mike Kilroy

[W. Niederhut]

Indeed, many of my all-time favorite "reporters" got "weird" over the JFKA case.

1) Dan Rather lied about the Zapruder film.

2)  Jim Lehrer never questioned the WCR narrative, to my knowledge-- even in recent years.

3)   Bill Moyers has never talked about what happened.

[Gene Kelly]

I find it troubling and difficult to understand why - to this day - the more powerful journalists and media do not embrace the mountain of evidence that has been amassed since the days of the Warren Commission, pointing towards a larger plot to kill the President.  I hesitate to use the word 'conspiracy' because it becomes such a polarizing and pejorative term.  I can  perhaps forgive those who were misled by the early cover stories (perhaps Anthony Lewis was on of those). The people who organized and executed JFK's murder were expert at what they did ... in both the planning, the execution, and the masterful coverup (especially the latter).  They controlled the evidence, the police, the witnesses, the media, and the agencies who should have prosecuted the crime.  In fact, its evident that the most powerful of those Agencies (FBI, CIA, Secret Service) were likely complicit in some limited way ... how does one begin to unravel something that complex?  

The deck was stacked against anyone who sought the truth in those days (and still is, to some extent) ...  through Garrison (late 60's), the HSCA (late 70's) and even as recent as Oliver Stone's movie (the 90's) which awakened a skeptical America and brought on the AARB and Records Act.  So here we are at 50 years, where redacted and illegible records and clues dribble out ... but connecting those dots takes persistence and passion.  I doubt that anyone in mainstream journalism (whatever that is today) wants to take on the massive resistance and disinformation that has polluted our history books and literary shelves.  This is simply not popular ... it does not sell newspapers or draw an audience.  I have friends who are/were reporters and journalists, and they are now scrambling for work as the profession shifts beneath their feet.  There is an unprecedented amount of written record - some by earnest and responsible authors; some not so (and I'll leave it at that) - so much so that anyone wading into this morass requires exceptional patience to separate the wheat from the chafe. Newspapers are dying off, no one reads books anymore, Libraries are empty or closed, and we get our news in 10-second sound bytes and tweets.  

Anthony Lewis did not appreciate that Stone maligned Chief Justice Earl Warren (and I get that) whom Lewis covered/admired (i.e. "loved this country with all his heart; the assassination tore him apart"). The notion that Warren would cover up the assassination was - for Lewis - contemptible: a contempt expressed by Stone's choice of the real Jim Garrison to play Earl Warren in the film.  In the same way, I know physicians who chafe/rail (emotionally) at the notion that the autopsy doctors and Parkland physicians would cover up the truth. But Lewis also was mislead into believing that Jim Garrison bribed witnesses to prosecute an innocent man.  I believe that they were all masterfully mislead.  Here is what Anthony Lewis prophetically wrote in January 1992 about the movie JFK:

I have no illusion that facts will dispel Oliver Stone's fantasy. Even to question the existence of a conspiracy is to risk being called a conspirator. Television is fascinated with the Stone phenomenon. It has no time for the man who knows more of the actual facts of the assassination than anyone else: David W. Belin, who was counsel to the Warren commission and has seen every document, every C.I.A. file.  No, the thirst for some deeper, darker truth is unquenchable in America.  We want the answer.  We want to open some file and find the conspiracy. But we never shall.