Don Hewitt

[W. Niederhut]

I noticed that the late CBS News producer Don Hewitt (1922-2009) is in the news today, about a previously undisclosed sex scandal.

Has anyone researched or written anything about Don Hewitt's involvement in the CBS News coverage of JFK's assassination?

In particular, I have wondered how and why Dan Rather felt compelled to lie about the Zapruder film, which he, apparently, viewed when it was first discovered after the assassination.

As I recall, William S. Paley of CBS had a close relationship with Allen Dulles.

Did Don Hewitt order Dan Rather to lie about the Zapruder film?

[Cory Santos]

No but I represent Hollywood actor Dan Hewitt Owens who was in the LBJ film and I stayed at a Hilton last night. 

Cheers. 

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

No but I represent Hollywood actor Dan Hewitt Owens who was in the LBJ film and I stayed at a Hilton last night. 

Cheers. 

Salud y pesetas, dude.

But, why do I ask?  Mainly because of Dan Rather's strange public fib about the Zapruder film in November of 1963.

I can't imagine that Dan Rather would have fibbed about something so important unless he had been ordered to do so.

So, who gave the order, and why?  Hewitt?

FWIW, here's a 2001 snippet I found on a Google search.

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/Hewitt.html

Don Hewitt (CBS) and the JFK Assassination

" Hewitt said "I know more about the JFK assassination than anyone here at CBS". Jim, astonished, asked why that was, and Hewitt revealed that CBS had gotten the Zapruder film and appointed staff, including himself, to study the assassination in depth. Jim, still astounded, asked what their conclusion had been, since he never saw it reported anywhere. Hewitt said they had concluded Oswald could not have killed Kennedy acting alone, there had to be another gunman involved. Jim asked why they didn't say that on CBS. Hewitt replied, "Oh, I know what you are thinking -- conspiracy! But we never found any evidence of a connection between Oswald and the other gunman." Thus, the paradigm is insured. "

[Kirk Gallaway]

I see your in your link

"He ordered Dan Rather to go to Zapruder's house, knock him out, take the film, copy it and return the film, allowing CBS lawyers to handle the assault charge . . . he then called Rather and told him not to do it. "

Wow!! That's really juicy!!!

.Yeah, I'm sure that really happened! Great reporting!

Here you go Neiderhut, This is part of a longer interview about the JFKA about a couple of years before Hewitt's death.

 

[W. Niederhut]

Captain Kirk,

    Don Hewitt can't have it both ways.  The man doth protest too much, eh?

    In your clip, Hewitt says, "I don't know any news man who wouldn't die to report this story (i.e., the obvious conspiracy to murder JFK.)

   Huh?  The guy was the producer of CBS News and 60 Minutes for decades!

   Why, then, didn't he let his reporters TELL the damned story?

   Here's my question.  Why did Dan Rather lie about the Zapruder film?

   How and WHY did that happen?  Any thoughts?

[James DiEugenio]

Hewitt is not being honest in this interview.  I find it hard to believe that he does not know about the massive cover up that took place at CBS for the 1967  4 part series. 

Hewitt was quite close to Rather and Cronkite, since he produced the CBS Evening News and was in charge of the JFK assassination coverage in 1963. 

As the late Roger Feinman, who worked at CBS, wrote about it, that 1967 series began with pretty good intentions.  People like Dan Schorr really wanted to do an investigative series that would actually try and find the true facts of the case.  And it was not just Schorr, but a coterie of about four or five employees and reporters who had read some of the books on the case and understood how phony the WC and FBI inquiries were.  But as that proposal went up the ladder, it was eventually crushed by the top management at CBS which had formed a secret committee, the CNEC, in the wake of all the uproar that Murrow had created there.  They then brought in two west coast lawyers to advise that CBS should actually take on the critics, not the Commission, and even recommended "experts" like Luis Alvarez for the show.

One of those lawyers, Bayless Manning, was then named by David Rockefeller as the first president of the CFR in 1971.  Pretty tough to expose any kind of conspiracy with that kind of resistance from the top.  Read all the details below.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/22/how-cbs-news-aided-the-jfk-cover-up/

Here is  a slightly longer version: 

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/why-cbs-covered-up-the-jfk-assassination

Funny that the interviewer did not ask Hewitt how CBS could put on a show endorsing the WC report in 1964, on the day that it was released. It happened.  How was that possible?  Mark Lane and Emile DeAntonio later found out that CBS not only knew what the report was going to say, but CBS rehearsed the report's witnesses when they said something that contradicted the official story for that one.  In fact, they were so tied into the WC that they changed their 1964 film scenario to include Brennan after the WC decided to feature him as their witness for the window.  (Mark Lane, A Citizen's Dissent, pp. 75-79)

As WN notes, Hewitt wants to have it both ways.  He wants to play the curious fellow about the WR, but he does not want to give away any of the deliberate corporate skullduggery that management forced them to do.  Because that then reduces him to another compromised shill.

Thanks for Feinman and Lane, we know what really happened there.  

Edited December 8, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[W. Niederhut]

          So, speaking as a guy who was a teenage Warren Commission Report dupe, it seems fair to say that Don Hewitt and CBS colluded in the long-term cover up of the conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy.

          Does anyone on the forum disagree with that premise?

[Kirk Gallaway]

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Captain Kirk,

    Don Hewitt can't have it both ways.  The man doth protest too much, eh?

    In your clip, Hewitt says, "I don't know any news man who wouldn't die to report this story (i.e., the obvious conspiracy to murder JFK.)

   Huh?  The guy was the producer of CBS News and 60 Minutes for decades!

   Why, then, didn't he let his reporters TELL the damned story?

   Here's my question.  Why did Dan Rather lie about the Zapruder film?

   How and WHY did that happen?  Any thoughts?

Neiderhut, You were asking for specific information about what Hewitt said years later  about the JFKA, and instead of your link's third hand account, I showed you there was  actual film of the reference  the expert in your link was referring to. I didn't make any claim for the accuracy of Hewitt's statement, and i certainly would never make such a claim for Dan Rather.

In this interview, he's certainly not owning the misinformation his network spread at the time.

Any thoughts on why Hewitt in old age would make a reference that " I think Nixon knows something" and " I think LBJ knew something too"? Ok, I get it, just f---king with us!

[W. Niederhut]

9 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Neiderhut, You were asking for specific information about what Hewitt said years later  about the JFKA, and instead of your link's third hand account, I showed you there was  actual film of the reference  the expert in your link was referring to. I didn't make any claim for the accuracy of Hewitt's statement, and i certainly would never make such a claim for Dan Rather.

In this interview, he's certainly not owning the misinformation his network spread at the time.

Any thoughts on why Hewitt in old age would make a reference that " I think Nixon knows something" and " I think LBJ knew something too"? Ok, I get it, just f---king with us!

Kirk,

     I never vouched for the 2001 quote about Hewitt.  I wrote, FWIW- - "For What It's Worth," like the Stephen Stills song.

    The reason I brought up the subject of Don Hewitt, in the first place, is that I'm curious about the process by which a major mainstream media corporation (CBS) colluded, for decades, in the cover up of a conspiracy to murder a U.S. president-- from Day One!

     How did that happen?  For example, who did Hewitt take his marching orders from at CBS?

[James DiEugenio]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

          So, speaking as a guy who was a teenage Warren Commission Report dupe, it seems fair to say that Don Hewitt and CBS colluded in the long-term cover up of the conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy.

          Does anyone on the forum disagree with that premise?

The evidence would certainly indicate that such was the case.

In Hewitt's case since he was producing the news hour in 1964 he had to have been involved with the 1964 special in some way.

On the later 1967 special I am not so sure.

As per his rather nebulous comments about Nixon etc, it reminds me of Ben Bradlee and Talbot.  Bradlee pleaded that he was just a young reporter in 1963.  Talbot did not ask him, "But Ben, when you were at the peak of your power in 1976, after Watergate, you did all you could to smear the HSCA, including colluding with David Phillips to knock down the Bishop/Phillips Veciana story."

In both cases, when Hewitt and Bradlee were in a position to do something positive, they utterly failed.It matters little what they said decades later in retirement.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Jim may purport to have specific insight, but I can tell you all corporate hierarchies can work differently.

[James DiEugenio]

WN:   How did that happen?  For example, who did Hewitt take his marching orders from at CBS?

Its in that article I linked to.  Based on the Fienman documents.  The top management--Paley, Stanton, Salant, and inexplicably Sig Mickelson, who was not part of CBS at the time, decided to halt the drive by the lower level guys to put the Warren Commission on trial.

To the point that John McCloy ended up being a consultant to the show, something that both he and CBS lied about.  This was convenient for Salant, since McCloy's daughter worked for him.

Roger Feinman paid a high price for protesting what CBS did.  He ended up getting terminated. But not before he spirited out these documents that proved their perfidy.

 

 

•  

Edited December 8, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

Did Hewitt have any known acquaintances at the CIA?  And, like W asked, who was his boss? 

[Kirk Gallaway]

Re: Mc Cloy and Feinman. I remember all that information from you, Jim, I've never researched it but I have no reason to doubt it.

As for Bradlee, we know the extent of his knowledge about some personal things as well that he  covered up for many years, but it didn't really address my question.

Why did Hewitt venture so far out into conspiracy land including 2 Presidents? I assume through no better theory offered , you would say, he's just trying to confuse us.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Kirk Gallaway

[James DiEugenio]

59 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Did Hewitt have any known acquaintances at the CIA?  And, like W asked, who was his boss? 

I don't know the answer to the first.

But in 1964, he was the producer of the nightly news.  Roger Feinman wrote that this made him the top line producer at CBS at the time.  They gave that job to Les Midgley in 1967 as Hewitt transitioned to Sixty Minutes. 

From the information that Roger left behind, in 1964, Hewitt would have only been responsible to Salant and the CNEC.