First Article from NY Times on Warren Report

[Ron Bulman]

On ‎7‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 10:51 AM, Mike Kilroy said:

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

Burkley is another nail in the coffin of the Warren Omission and the HSCA.  One of many reasons I personally continue to refer to it as the Warren Omission.  Historian Dr. Walt Brown titled a book I don't have by that name.  The importance of Burkley's observances being in both places as a Physician can not be overstated.  I've thought this for years, but they were ignored and omitted.  How can either be called a investigation if they refused to acknowledge such basic information any prosecutor would have sought in any other murder case?  I feel confident, as a Navy officer someone spoke to him about National Security, and maybe his own, initially.  He later would have liked to have come clean but was rebuffed, ignored, omitted.

Not to trivialize here but even Perry Mason would have liked to have had him on the stand.  "Dr. Burkley, as you were in both places, did you note any differences in President Kennedy's wounds between the time you last saw him in Dallas and first saw him at Bethesda? 

Edited July 17, 2018 by Ron Bulman

[James DiEugenio]

Lewis wanted the public to defer to Belin on the JFK case?

 

And this is 1992.

[Gene Kelly]

A lot of this comes across as lawyers defending the reputations of lawyers ... particularly Earl Warren.

David Belin died at age 70 in 1999 from head injuries sustained in a fall in his hotel room in Rochester, where he had gone for his annual physical checkup.  After the fall, Belin was in a coma for 12 days.  He worked in corporate law, litigation and estate law, and served as an assistant counsel on the Warren Commission and Executive Director of the Rockefeller Commission.  Belin stood by all of the findings of the Warren Commission report until his death, and was known to become incensed at any mention of an assassination conspiracy.  As he lay in a coma in his final days, his friends would whisper conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination into his ear to confirm his unconsciousness by his unprecedented lack of response.  He also lived in Manhattan's East Side and served as an adviser to wealthy families in New York and was described as ''a moderate Republican who had no use for the far right of his party or the far left of the Democratic Party.'' He was a vocal critic of Stone's movie JFK and used strong invective to describe it as "a hoax, a smear and pure fiction that rivals the Nazi propaganda films in which Adolph Hitler was depicted as a new born god".  He wrote a December 1991 Washington Post article with none other than Gerald Ford ("How About the Truth?") denouncing Stone's movie.  He fiercely defended Earl Warren for 30 years, and testified to the AARB in 1996 where he made the following polemic statements:

A vocal group of assassination revisionists are poised like scavengers to attach the Assassination Records Review Board. They will play to the grandstand when the Board has completed its work crying out "If you would have released everything we would have finally found the truth about the assassination. Leading this group will be individuals associated with JFK, the greatest electronic coverup fraud ever perpetrated on America's movie screens. 

For me the ultimate issue is whether there will be any change in the present course and direction of the electronic media as profit seeking corporations and individuals if priority to misrepresentations and deceit over truth going so far as to infiltrate our school system with the virus of lies, the present course of the electronic media poses a clear and present danger for the future of democracy in America.

If I leave any legacy on this earth ... what I have done for more than 25 years in standing up for the truth, and defending Earl Warren might in some small way be a tiny beacon of light that will point the way to people of vision and idealism who will recognize that truth is the foundation of civilization. They will understand how important it is for Americans to understand the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They will understand how important it is to expose the misrepresentations of assassination revisionists and the electronic downpour of deceit in movies like JFK and television programs like The Men Who Killed Kennedy. They will help resurrect the reputation of Earl Warren, who has been the victim of libel and slander of which perhaps the worst was the false testimony by Oliver Stone before a Congressional Committee in April 1992 that Earl Warren was partially senile. And above all, they will help restore trust and confidence in government, the mortar which binds a free society.

 

[Michaleen Kilroy]

I don’t believe Earl Warren would buy that description of Earl Warren.

Fact is we know why Warren agreed to lead the commission - LBJ told him about a little thing he learned about LHO In Mexico City that could lead the country into nuclear war - presumably Oswald’s meeting with Kostikov. Warren joined fhe commission as a duty to calm the American people with his image of integrity - not to find the truth.

[James DiEugenio]

It was worse than that Mike.

He gave him the whole Hussein  "mushroom cloud" colloquy, like forty million dead thing.

I have always wondered about that myself.  Did Johnson really believe that stuff.  If he was, then he was being duped by disinfo from the CIA.

If he did not buy it then why did he tell Warren that?  But I guess we have to rely on the info that Hoover did not figure out that the whole Oswald in MC was a charade until six weeks later.  And LBJ was relying on Hoover for his info to a large degree.

Belin never brought in these refinements to the argument. Neither did he ever admit that Warren was really  a titular chair.  What I have called the Troika--Dulles, McCloy and Ford really ran that committee.  And Rankin catered to them.  Russell, Boggs and Cooper were like extras in a TV movie.

[W. Niederhut]

What about Elmer Moore's apparent close "relationship" with Earl Warren in 1964?  Was Warren being blackmailed or threatened?

Was there more to Warren's cooperation with the WC "Lone Nut" narrative than LBJ's "mushroom cloud" threat?

And wouldn't Warren have learned as early as January of 1964 that Oswald had been an FBI informant-- a fact that must have raised serious doubts for the commissioners about the narrative of Oswald being a pro-Castro Marxist, etc. ?

This leads to other questions about LBJ and Hoover in 1963, who were, apparently, next door neighbors in D.C.

Do the research experts here believe Phillip Nelson's argument that LBJ had foreknowledge of JFK's assassination-- based on the Altgens photo of LBJ, allegedly ducking down in his limo as it approached Elm Street?

I don't pretend to have the correct answer here, just the question.

 

Edited July 17, 2018 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Bulman]

6 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

What about Elmer Moore's apparent close "relationship" with Earl Warren in 1964?  Was Warren being blackmailed or threatened?

Was there more to Warren's cooperation with the WC "Lone Nut" narrative than LBJ's "mushroom cloud" threat?

And wouldn't Warren have learned as early as January of 1964 that Oswald had been an FBI informant-- a fact that must have raised serious doubts for the commissioners about the narrative of Oswald being a pro-Castro Marxist, etc. ?

This leads to other questions about LBJ and Hoover in 1963, who were, apparently, next door neighbors in D.C.

Do the research experts here believe Phillip Nelson's argument that LBJ had foreknowledge of JFK's assassination-- based on the Altgens photo of LBJ, allegedly ducking down in his limo as it approached Elm Street?

I don't pretend to have the correct answer here, just the question.

 

I'm no researcher or expert but just from what I've read over the years I believe LBJ had fore knowledge but that's about it.   Not involved in the planning but apprised to what would happen so control could be maintained, so that the "right" actions could be taken, or not taken as it were afterwards.  This is speculation but I'd guess Moore was babysitting Warren.  Reporting to his superiors Warrens thoughts and passing their "suggestions" along to him.  If I recall correctly LBJ and Hoover lived across the street from each other but they frequently (weekly?) had dinner together at one or the others house.

Regarding ducking...  This was discussed in some depth 4-5-6 years ago I think on JFK Facts, maybe it was here, I didn't look first.  I'd read he ducked.  I believe LBJ said his SS agent, Rufus Youngblood(?) jumped on top of him and he later gave him an award for it.  No evidence I've ever read of to support his story.  In fact, I think Senator Ralph Yarborough said he was bent over forward next to Youngblood and they were listening to a (portable?) radio of some sort turned down so low he couldn't hear what was being said on it.  That makes me wonder what they might have been listening to at that moment.  

[Gene Kelly]

Earl Warren is an interesting political figure. Warren led the Court from 1953 - 1969 through many landmark cases dealing with race, justice, and representation. He won the California governorship in 1942, a post he held for three terms, with an outlook that was considered both fiscally conservative and socially progressive.  Warren helped end school segregation with the court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In 1966, the Warren Court made another controversial ruling on criminal justice procedures in the case of Miranda v. Arizona. He was a big, fair-haired man, called Pinky in his youth, who loved spectator sports and outdoor life, and whose suits were always double-breasted blue serge.

Most interesting, he had a blood feud with Richard Nixon which lasted 25 years. It started during Nixon’s first political campaign, and lasted until Warren's death (see March 2017 Smithsonian article by John Farrell entitled "The Inside Story of Richard Nixon’s Ugly, 30-Year Feud with Earl Warren").  After an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1952, Nixon became Eisenhower's running mate. to “keep the California delegation in line”.  Warren believed that Nixon was trying to sabotage him ... from that day forward, Warren hated Nixon.  The feuding subsided once Eisenhower appointed Warren to lead the Supreme Court in 1953 (a nomination that Eisenhower later stated was "the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made").  General Eisenhower was said to have offered it first to John Foster Dulles, who preferred to remain Secretary of State. As late as 1957 he was still sufficiently piqued at Nixon to inform the American Bar Association that he would refuse an invitation to attend its convention if Vice President Nixon were also invited.  Nixon then lost the 1960 presidential election to John Kennedy and sought to make a comeback by running for Warren’s old job as governor in California in 1962.  Warren openly campaigned against Nixon, dispatching his son to stump the state campaigning against Nixon, who subsequently lost the election. 

Warren bore the brunt of  criticism of the Court's decisions, which came from policemen and prosecutors; politicians; white supremacists; conservatives; and, indirectly, from the Nixon White House. The cry from the Nixon Administration that the Warren Court "coddled criminals" and fostered permissiveness." Some wanted him removed, and at one time there were a spate of billboard and bumper signs that said "Impeach Earl Warren."  Of the signs, Warren said, "It was kind of an honor to be accused by the John Birch Society. Warren reluctantly yielded to the persuasion of President Lyndon Johnson to lead the Warren Commission, and described the ten months of the commission's work as "the unhappiest time of my life".

In 1968, Warren was ready to retire, but didn’t want Nixon to name his successor. He approached President Lyndon Johnson, and reached an agreement to have LBJ’s good friend and adviser, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, promoted to chief justice after just a couple of years on the court. Senate Republicans went to work, filibustered, and blocked the Fortas nomination. Warren was compelled to stay on, with the sour duty of swearing-in Nixon as the 37th president in January 1969. The conflicts over the Warren and Fortas seats were much like the Spanish Civil War—a struggle in which outside foes debuted and tested weaponry and tactics they would employ in the frays to come. And after ending up on the losing end of a Supreme Court ruling when trying to halt publication of leaked secrets in the Pentagon Papers case, Nixon installed an in-house gang Plumbers, to investigate, intimidate and defame leakers ... which eventually led him to Watergate.  Over the years, Warren would tell people how “Nixon cut my throat from here to here,” and gesture with his finger across his neck.  As Warren lay on his death bed in July 1974, he urged his fellow justices (Douglas and Brennan) that the Supreme Court must rule for the Watergate special prosecutor in the ongoing legal struggle over Nixon’s White House tapes, he told the two justices.  The president had declined to comply with a lower court’s order and Warren was to take one last swing at his nemesis:

“If Nixon gets away with that, then Nixon makes the law as he goes along – not the Congress nor the courts,” Warren said. “The old Court you and I served so long will not be worthy of its traditions if Nixon can twist, turn and fashion the law.”

The feud between Warren and Nixon evolved from a grudge match between Californians until it poisoned and polarized Supreme Court politics, on and off the bench, for many years to follow (even to today). 

[James DiEugenio]

Like most of his book, Nelson is full of baloney with that LBJ ducking issue.

Groden discredited it in his book Absolute Proof.

 

That is interesting Gene, I was not aware of how much RMN and Warren disliked each other.  I really like that comment from Warren that his service of the WC was the unhappiest time of his life.  I wonder why. 

[Gene Kelly]

Jim

Warren's obituary stated that, in taking the post, he yielded to the importuning of President Johnson. The 10 months of the commission's work were "the unhappiest time of my life," he said, adding that:

"To review the terrible happenings of that assassination every day [was] a traumatic experience. "The only reason I undertook the commission was the gravity of the situation. There was no way of holding a trial, for Oswald was dead and the country needed to have the facts of the killing brought out. But it isn't a good thing for a Justice to undertake such duties."   

The commission was an unhappy experience for Warren, who did not want the assignment. As a judge, he valued candor and justice, but as a politician he recognized the need for secrecy in some matters.  In the book "Earl Warren: A Public Life by G. Edward White,

The Story of Warren's service on the commission is the story about a man whose strong instincts for justice and candor collided with other strong elements in his nature - his patriotism, his interest in making decisions swiftly, his awareness of the political implications of his decisions, and his belief that matters of great public significance , if decided by a collective body, should if all possible be decided unanimously.  It is the story of an unhappy and unsatisfying experience in Earl Warren's life'

Gene

[Robert Harper]

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

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

 

 

Who does fill the profile of a compromised or biased journalist? Who could be so identified and still function as a journalist? There are good journalists and bad journalists, do we know why the bad ones are bad, and the good ones good? Like all prominent awards the "pulitzer" means something - no question. But it also does not mean a lot of things.

 

 Writing a very good book (Gideon's Trumpet) about the saga of a legal case in America set a new standard for such coverage. Jeffrey Toobin for one, might not have the job he has, unless Anthony Lewis paved the way.  However, such distinctions or ability does not equate to being a good reporter or being an ethical lawyer. Lewis blew it big time about the JFK murder. He didn't have a clue and didn't care enough to even study what was there. It wasn't just Garrison in the "late 60's" that exposed the Warren Commission for what it was; it was in the mid-60's  in books by Sauvage, Lane, Buchanan, Meagher, Salandria, Thompson and others, that were screaming that the big important commission of all the distinguished and honorable men was full of poop. Mark Anthony in Shakespeare's play assures the mob that the killers of Caesar "were all, all honorable men."

 

 It was in reading Laurence Walsh's book about the Iran / Contra case that I came across a mention of Mr. Toobin's ethical flexibility. Writing good non-fiction books doesn't make you an honest man or a good reporter. And while we're at it, being an effective leader for progressive change in the political and judicial fields, doesn't mean that you will rise to the occasion at a unique event to serve as a Judge (in another thread - I compared the unique opportunity offered to two esteemed Judges; only one of them rose to the job and it wasn't Warren). In any assessment of Warren's reputation - or his relationship with Richard Nixon - one should include the facts that Murray Chotiner served both of them during their respective campaigns in California.

 

From SPARTACUS: 

In a radio broadcast in 1956 Drew Pearson claimed that in the 1950 election, Mickey Cohen, one of the leaders of the mob in Los Angeles, had raised funds for Nixon's 1950 campaign. According to Pearson, this deal was organized by Chotiner. This story was not confirmed until Cohen signed a confession in October, 1962. At the time he was in Alcatraz Prison. Cohen claims he raised $75,000 for Nixon in 1950 in return for political favours. This deal was arranged via Chotiner. In his autobiography, Cohen claims that the orders to help Nixon came from Meyer Lansky....As a lawyer, Chotiner obtained a reputation for working for organized crime bosses. In 1956 Robert Kennedy and Carmine Bellino began an investigation of Chotiner.

 

 I grew up reading the NY Times. I was an editor and a sports columnist in High School because I thought Arthur Daily had  the best job in the world. He could ruminate on all sorts of stuff and go to the games and be paid. I had the Times delivered to me as a college student, when most were averse to newspapers. During a lecture course I took at the New School in New York, author Alfred Kazin said that whatever you thought of the editorial viewpoints, everyone who wrote for the Times could write. And of course the obits! some book reviewers!

 

I finally stopped subscribing after 40 years of reading it because, 1) you can find good writing about the news if one looks, and 2) they are so tied to maintaining the status quo, they have lost a skeptical and curious and unbiased ability to  really report anything. They also censor comments, unlike at the Wall Street Journal (to which I now subscribe; they don't pretend that they don't represent the status quo).

James Reston, the Times' big time journalist, could write. The weekend of the JFK murder he typed out a column while sitting in his home in Virginia, and claimed that what the FBI said, goes. He was exposed after his death as being among the Mockingbird crew, but he was what was termed an "authority."  Recently Judith Miller got front page space by "covering" the lead up to the Iraq War with all of the terrible weapons they had according to her "sources" - which, like always, was the government itself. Seymour Hersh has been published by the Times, but he could never function in such an environment by choice, for long. He is a real reporter.

The Mockingbird list - as awful as it was to confront - merely exposed those who had an established, ongoing relationship with the CIA. By the late 70's when Rolling Stone published Carl Bernstein's article on Mockingbird, only those whose heads were in the sand for a dozen years were surprised. If not for independent book publishing and the Internet and University presses, Americans would be far more insulated and brainwashed.

 

I only wrote one personal letter to the publisher of the Times back in the mid-80's. It was about their replacement of columnist Sydney Schanberg - the only columnist who was actually "speaking truth to power" like the Pulitzer Boards and others like to proclaim. However, when you really speak truth to power, they get rid of you if they can - or make every effort to diminish you if they can't. The publisher wrote back saying that just because  Mr Schanberg no longer worked there, that didn't mean that his views would be eliminated. Ha.

 

The New York Times might very well be the "paper" of record but in the next century, paper will fade. There won't be 5 or 6 corporations taking info from the government and feeding it to the people as news. You think, maybe, maybe, the government won't be able to cover-up a political killings since there is more access to "truth."

 

But then, you have the 9/11 Report that doesn't even mention a 47 story building collapsing. We are back in November 1963, needing real reporters yet again.