Nathaniel Heidenheimer

I discovered this article by Jim Hougan, the author of Secret Agenda, a very well researched book on Watergate. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/A...gan-lobster.htm I have also read disparate accouts of other CIA involvement of with religious cults, and am wondering how widespread this was. I think in Joan Mellons book, A Farewell To Justice, she writes of some of these connections among those who had contact with Oswald in New Orleans. If we can get these connections on one thread, it might be easier to see a common denominator.

Just was looking at the previews of the Laurence Stern articles at the Washington Post website. You have to buy a pass to read the whole articles. On first glance it sure looks like Laurence Stern might have trouble getting a job in today's world of Corporate Journalism. There is an artilce from 1969 questions the Tax exempt status of the Rockefeller Foundation, and another one from that year that seems to imply that all the rhetoric about the Mylai massacre was designed to obfuscate the wider carnage. I wonder what doorsteps these articles lead to. I looked at many headlines and brief previews that made it seem like Stern was a real reporter. If anyone has time and doesn't mind paying four bucks an article to the Post, without knowing exactly what your going to get, this looks like a good source.

I just clicked on the Huffington Post and saw about 77 articles on the scandal of the week, Alberto G. This ranks as bout the 503rd biggest scandal (in terms of budget and world impact) of this bipartisan Bush regime -- Bush plus the highly professional Bush enablers known as the Democratic party. The Huffington Post never has anything about 9-11 anymore. They almost never, or very sporadically have anything about the lies that started the war anymore, even though new stuff is constantly coming out. Just what is the result of this "left" sites scandal of the week approach, that is sold to them almost straight from the corporate democratic leaderships mouth? The result is to waste a tremendous amount of time reading about scandals that will NEVER EVER EVER EVER go anywere, unless they stop a million miles short of the MIC or fundemental issues of money, war, and class structure. Im not saying one can't learn some usefull things on the Huffington post and related big money glossy-left sites. You can sometimes. But as the CIA's sponsorship of Encounter magazines in the 1950s showed, the agency media people understand the need to feed a few legitimate left morsells to keep suspiciouns down, and enhance the credibility of the publication on the intended audience. Think of how much time so called left sites have wasted on the Plame Scandal. I am beginning to strongly suspect that that whole thing may have been a Mockingbird-like diversionary media op. to occupay the left and have them follow liberal foundation wonks while the nation fell deeper asleep. This scandal, compared to all the other evil--yes I use the E-word--things Bush had done has the nutritional substance of Bubbleyum. Yet on they chewed: on thier bloggs and Huffington Posts. The CIA was made out to seem an INNOCENT VICTIM OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION! Who baked that dichotomy? One of the leading "attackers" of Bush from the CIA over the Plame McScandal was Larry C. Johnson. Check out what Peter Lance writes concerning Johnson in Tripple Cross: As late as May 2002, eight months after 9/11, that same soryy was repeated by Larry C. Johnson, the former State Dept. counterrerrorism offical( under bush 41 and clinton) infamous for his July 2001 New York Times quote minimizing the imortance of Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda:To listen to some of the news reports a year or two ago, you would think Bin Laden was running a top Fortune 500 multinational company," said Johnson, "people everywhere, links everywhere" He then compounded that mistaken assessment five weeks later with a Times Op-Ed piece entitled "The Declining Terrorist Threat," describing al Qaeda as a loose amalgm of people with a shared ideology, but a very limited direction" Johnson's piece ran on July 10, 2001, the day the Phoenix Memo arrived (p. 384) This Johnson is the same guy who later defended the CIA's intelligence VS. Bush in the Wilson-Wind-Bag mcScandal? Interesting guy to defend the CIA's intelliegence, while simaltaneously changing the channel onto a much smaller question of the Plame-outing. Oh, well it has all come to nothing. Or was that the point? Remember Communications theorists have been working hard since 1945-- see Christopher Simpson's excellent book, THE SCIENCE OF COERCION: COMMUNICATION RESEARCH AND PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH, 1945-1960. Yummy! http://www.amazon.com/Science-Coercion-Com...0160&sr=1-4

"far left TV media"?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? :ph34r: Oxymoron writer on oxycontin. How on earth could anyone not recieving a check from the Mullen company et al believe there was anything even close to the far left on american TV. Even the TV dems are to the right of Nixon.

Kathleen-- There are good articles about Obama on the Counterpunch site. I type this even while I have serious suspicions that this might be a gatekeeping site. Nevertheless, they do have a lot of good stuff on there sometimes. Just yahoo Obama Counterpunch. I now refer to him as Barack 'N Bomb Em in order to draw attention to how he really divides the anti-war majority in the US, and ABOVE ALL KEEPS IT VOICELESS IN THE NATIONAL MEDIA --- Nathaniel

Obama is also not a threat to power. He is a Corporate firewall manufactured by corporate media, saying nothing specific, so that everyone can hear what they want to hear. His purpose it to divide the antiwar movement. He is a media op.

Cord Meyer died of lymphoma on 13th March, 2001. What is interesting is what he said to C. David Heymann a few weeks before he died: C. David Heymann, The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club (2003) Cord Meyer gave expression to his support of Angleton in, "Facing Reality," an autobiography subtitled, "From World Federalism to the CIA." In the same volume, he comments briefly on the murder of his wife: "I was satisfied by the conclusions of the police investigation that Mary had been the victim of a sexually motivated assault by a single individual and that she had been killed in her struggle to escape." Carol Delaney, a family friend and longtime personal assistant to Cord Meyer, observed that, "Mr. Meyer didn't for a minute think that Ray Crump had murdered his wife or that it had been attempted rape. But, being an Agency man, he couldn't very well accuse the CIA of the crime, although the murder had all the markings of an in-house rubout." Asked to comment on the case, by the current author (C. David Heymann), Cord Meyer held court at the beginning of February 2001 - six weeks before his death - "The same sons of bitches," he hissed, "that killed John F. Kennedy." http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmeyerC.htm As E. Howard Hunt says in his book, he got to know Cord Meyer when he was running Operation Mockingbird. He also claims that Mary Pinchot Meyer was killed by a professional hitman. He quotes from the research of Leo Damore. What Hunt does not say is that Damore committed suicide and his book on Meyer was never published. However, a friend of mine has a copy of the manuscript. In it Damore names an CIA operative as being the killer. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdamore.htm Now that is an interesting confession just before his death!! More so that Damore committed assisted suicide! John, can you name the name? One we know? While it is easy to imagine that Mary was used [perhaps unknowingly] to spy on JFK [meet him in bugged rooms or whatever....] and had to be done away with for what she knew [she too suspected a conspiracy and likely knew the players - or would figure it out], the fact that Cord might be so 'high' in the cabal is new and interesting if true. I'd agree that it is worth the effort to see if LBJ and CM had some relationship - possibly through some mutual friend. All the others on the 'list' are A-OK and as now well known. I also think that the fact that MPM and JFK used LSD is NOT to be ignored. It was being tested at that time as a truth serum by the CIA and they may have been hoping to get some truth they were fishing for....if nothing else, and it was just recreational, they ['they'] were likely afraid of what such a free-spirit would become if he were taking such liberating mind-expanding drugs. _--------------------------- I agree with this comment about the possible effects of LSD. Especially when it is combined with 1) fundamental questions of "who's in charge here" after the Bay of Pigs, questions that would have been irrepressible in the psychology of both the president and the bureacratic psychology of the National Security State. 2) the experience of being the closest the world has ever been to nuclear war in October 1962, and battling chthonic buraucrats like LeMay and Lyman Lemnitzer and others who had exciteable and speedy speedboats from Miami, and liked to pick unauthorized fights. Imagine taking LSD and Curtis Lemay. Geez, the FDA ought to have had a warning out... something akin to barbiturates and Budweiser. Thats enough to reverse the missile gap rhetoric of 1960 real fast! (No mahn, I mean the INNER missile gap of PERCEPTION ) We also need to remember that LSD did not yet have the Haight-Ashbury stigma of extreme cultural marginalization that it has for us today. This is more important than it might seem, because it might be a variable in whether Kennedy dismissed his tripping or "listened to its wisdom, mahn" I would certainly be interested in learning more of the details about whether JFK took LSD at a time when it was still culturally concievable to chase a white rabbit in the White House. Any good sources on this ?

Ive been wondering for a while why Kennedy trusted Landsdale so much, given his ties to so many of the old China Lobby types. In this light it was interesting to read in Gold Warriers that Landsdale, like David Phillips, often tried to hide his right wing leanings with some liberal utterances. Does anyone suspect that Landsdale may have been a crtitical vortex in undermining the Kennedy's attempt to keep the CIA under thier thumb with the creation of the Special Group? Should we see Lansdale's OSS China ties ( I mean to Willoughby, MacArthur (Helms?) network) as suspicious for someone in SGA?

OK. You convinced me. Ill order both of them.

Paul, that part that reviewed the book at the bottom of my post was not my writing, but was coppied from an Amazon review. However, I find it accurate in the sense that if you hear anything at all of Kennedy's economic policy, it is a brief reference to "the Kennedy tax cuts" without any mention of what kind of taxes were cut-- ie progressive or regressive taxes. Because of the way tax policy is not mediated by the media in the US most readers would be left with the impression that this was a rightward movement, even if it wasn't. Maybe ,it in fact was, I should know. Does anyone have any easy access to analysis of the Kennedy tax cuts. Perhaps Prof., Gibson is alluding to other economic policies, ones that kennedy was only trying to implement at the time of his death. It is certaily very easy to quote Kennedy between 1958- and 61 and conclude that he was the ultimate Cold Warrior. For a long time Cockburn and Chomsky had pulled the wool over my eyes by ignoring the pivotal roles that the BOP and CMC had in played in changing Kennedy's thinking. (Then again there is considerable evidence of Kennedy's resisting the National Security Bureacracy in reguards to Laos in Spring 1961 also, as John Newman, Gareth Porter and that guy from the Naval War College (?) who I saw on a fascinating talk on C-SPAN pointed out) Is there a similar selective quotation regarding Kennedy's economic policies, that is designed to minimize the threat he posed to Wall Street?

Someone mentioned another book by this author on another thread, so I looked him up. He has also written a book on the corporate media and how it handled the Assassination. I don't think I have seen much mention of him on the forum until now. Has anyone read this book? Do you know what specific macro economic policies the author focuses on? Do you recommend the book? So far as macro-economic stuff mostly what I know is of Kennedy's desire to repeal the oil depletion allowance. I am very interested in knowing of other ways in which he may have challenged the Wall Street consensus re: tax policy and other questions concerning economic issues that might seriously effect the distrubution of wealth. -------- Book Description More than thirty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the meaning and the legacy of his presidency are as much the subject of controversy as are the facts of his murder. Was JFK a tool of the Eastern Establishment - of the corporate and banking elites - or was he their bitterest enemy? Did his policies - domestic and international, implemented and unfulfilledserve to continue the domination of the powers-that-be, or did he attempt, and in many cases effect, a break with America's aristocracy? In this intriguing and penetrating analysis, Don Gibson does not simply replay the standard commentaries on the Kennedy presidency, many of which are ill-informed, even if well-meaning. Gibson looks at what JFK himself said, wrote, and did, contrasting that with the words and actions of his enemies-the Wall Street Journal, Fortune magazine, and the corporate and banking magnates themselves, who, as this book shows, truly despised the President. The current conventional wisdom depicts Kennedy as a cautious, even a conservative president, a Tory Democrat committed to the status quo and to the Establishment. But this book makes a compelling case to the contrary, suggesting that President Kennedy was always willing to do battle for his policies, even in the face of vicious attacks. With its clear and lively style, this book is a revelation to the general reader and to the specialist. It also contains strikingly original insights into environmental elitism. It adds a new and important dimension to the ongoing debate over the Kennedy presidency. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

I don't trust The Nation, I don't think they're a genuine progressive publication, and I've boycotted them for years for that reason. I think they're a faux liberal "asset," like Noam Chomsky. FWIW I know I am repeating myself here, but I entrirely agree about The Nation, and believe there is a clear historical precedent of CIA "left-gatekeeping" in the case of Encounter Magazine during the critically important years of 1950--55, in which the Military Industrial Complex was becoming entrenched. The CIA realized that a publication that had credibility on the left was in many ways far more useful in defining the limits of acceptable political debate than was a magazine in the centre or right. If such a magazine, for example could get its readers to look down on the Bandung Conference, and Neutralism, then they could trumpet the fact that "EVEN PROFESSOR DOODLEBUG, KNOWN LEFTIST AND SUPPORTER OF NATIONAL HEALTH ETC, SAYS THAT NEUTRALISM IS BEYOND THE PALE, SO THEREFORE, ANYONE WHO BELIEVES IN NEUTRALISM IS A SOVIET STOOGE" Years from today, when historians look back at this era, I think they will wonder how such a magazine could continue to take the democratic party seriously, how they could continue to legitimate Hillary Rodham Bush as a "progressive", and how the magazine worked to divide the opposition or put it to sleep. The book to read about Encounter Magazine is Francis Saunder's The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. It shows that the psuedo-left has been the most vital and creative source of CIA disinformation strategies.

-------- Bill, you mention Lance's argument that TWA flight 800 was an al Qaeda attack. I found his argument quite convincing, that it was an al Qaeda attack. I was less convinced, however, by his account of why the US attorneys decided not to presecuste it as a terrorist attack. He says that to treat 800 as a terrorsit attack, the FBI would have needed to blow the cover of a witness who had helped make a lot of key cases related to the early 1990's mafia turf war in Brooklyn. He argues that these cases helped make a lot of careers in the FBI and in the Southern Manhattan DA's office, if I'm not mistaken. While his argurment here seemed plausible, It was not nearly as convincing as his argument that 800 was al Qaeda. Did you read his previous book, Coverup? What did you think of the way he addressed these two major questions?

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stor...76?OpenDocument This story provides an overview of Eagleton's Career.

Posner also falsely claimed that autopsists Humes and Boswell changed their placement of a rear head entry wound, to where it is seen in the official autopsy photos. He said they agreed that the wound was four inches higher than where they placed it in the autopsy report. Both denied ever changing their original placement of the wound, and Boswell told Gary Aguilar that he never even spoke to Posner. What a fraud the man is. Brian-- Do you have any links or pagenumbers to offer re your last 2 sentence. I would like to post this on some threads attacking Posner that I have started on some other threads. I think its important that we deligitimate Posner BEFORE THE MASSES because that is where he is pushed lika a drug. Specifically any links to Humes and Boswell denying they had ever changed their original placement of the wound. Thanx

It seems like within the last year or so steps are being taken to "moat" the internet. What I mean by this is to isolate sites that talk about real CIA ops ( as opposed to fake plame-gate depictions of the CIA) from the big glossy "left" sites such as Huffington Post, Counterpunch etc THAT LIKE IT OR NOT GET WAY WAY MORE HITS than other sites that do talk realistically about CIA history, and other unflattering aspects of US intel. history. Another example of this "Moating" process is evident in John Simkin's threads relating to the CIA and Wikipedia and Google. Sites that vindicate the CIA are promoted, while connections to Spartacus-Ed Forum are snipped. How many thousands of curious young minds have thus been detoured from truth? One way we can fight back is by posting Youtube videos and connections to this site on other sites that get a lot more hits. Here is one example: I just posted this ten hours ago,on St. Louis Post Dispatch site and it has already received more than one hundred hits. How many other threads got sent from this one? No man is an island, somone once said. Sometimes, it seems like the new CIA strategy for sites like this one is "keep this site an island" Judging from the fact that I have almost never seen more than 33 viewers on this site at the same time, it seems like this stragegy is working. I would have expected there would have been a growing audience to this site, but since I discovered it about two years ago, this has not happened. http://www.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=440264

I've read about half of Tripple Cross and am still reading it. It definitely offers a strong argument that the FBI and CIA knew much more about Al Q., and much earlier than is commonly marketed. It certainly adds to our understanding of why Bush appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to the fake "PlameGate" scandal. Fitzgerald was already so compromised by the either "botched" or planned 'failures' to stop Al Q. THROUGHOUT the 1990's (as in all the way back to 1989) that he could be easily controlled, in terms of how far he threatened the Bush administration in the Plamegate McScandal. Tripple Cross makes for an interesting battering ram, against the the Official 9/11 Report (actually a gentle breeze would do it, were it not protected from these by our hothouse corporate media). On the one hand it does not (so far) go very close to "inside job' lines of argument. (Peter is off course a former reporter for ABC's 20/20). On the other, it makes a laughable joke of the Official 9/11 Commission' beginning thier study of Al Q. in 1996, and leaves no doubt that this was raw cover up--although it leans towards cover up of a 'buraucratic bungling' sort.

Have you ever thoutht that the difference between history and "conspiracy theory" was a function of circulation--i.e. how many readers got a chance to read a certain story. I think this is one of the variables, though not the only one. The Huffington Post has a new feature in which you can nominate and vote on articles THAT SHOULD BE GETTING A LOT MORE ATTANTION. In short, articles can be "huffed into" the mainstream. Actually Huff post gets a heck of a lot of hits. One strategy for preventing the truth about the JFK assassination and other cover-ups might just be to get 13 people blogging to each other on the same sites,thus PREVENTING ACCESS TO OTHER SITES THAT REACH HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS The CIA might be thinking "No need to burn bridges if they never build any bridges in the first place, and we just keep them chattering in catacombs of the internet" Im not suggesting time on educational forum is wasted. Its the best site I've ever found. But what if three percent of people's time was spent providing links from this site to sites with broader audiences like Huff post. This might be way of counteracting known "left-gatekeeping" strategies of the CIA, as practiced most notibly in their creation and complete funding for Encounter Magazine throughout the first half of the Cold War. Now some might suspect Huff Post's new article nominating feature as limiting to current events alone. But there is fairly good--though definitely not comprehensive article-- about the Militay Industrial Complex (they are a few hyphens behind the times, I mean Forum) that has currently recieved the most votes. If forum members used this feature it could be a good way of drawing WIDER ATTENTION to articles that we think more people should know about. Registration is easy at Huffington Post. I suggest that members look into this feature and dicide it its thier cup of tea. Otherwise botched budhists might one day write of this excellent resource we have at Education Forum, "if a tree falls in the Forum and only 13 people hear it...."

Well put. Ultimate Sacrifice fails because it pins causality on the Mob and not the CIA, while the body of its text has the two working hand in glove. The authors try to absolve the agency from causality, but their own text warns us they protest too much.

Yeah, that one

Maybe its just me but... it seems I have been stumbling accross this name a lot lately, when looking into a variety of history books with one common denominator: they are all based on interpretations of highly classified documents that seem only recently to have become available-- if indeed they are currently available-- to the general public. These topics include Nazi intelligence, tapes of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administration, and 9/11 and intelligence policy since 9/11. Do members have any impressions of the Miller Center as a whole? Do you see any common denominators between otherwise disparate publications of the joint? Should they be kept on the big league roster? Or perhaps thoughts on a specific Miller Center publication?

Pardon this novice straw grasping but, Does anyone find it intriguing that Al Haig is alledged to have been in the know along with Califano, about the C-Day coup that Ultimate Sacrifice alledges Kennedy was planning against Cuba... And Al was also implanted into Henry's top secret trip to China in '71 ("Who's in Charge here?") and according to Silent Coup was part of a right wing hit on Nixon? Nixon is said to have referred to the Kennedy Assassination as "the bay of pigs thing" for safety reasons. (Do you agree?) If this connection was real and part of Nixon trap was Haig the hook or sinker? I realize that the whole C-Day argument is highly contentious, but do members agree with Haig aspect of Ultimate Sacrifice? In other words is the Haig involvement or knowlege of Kennedy's Cuba plans entirely contingent upon the validity of the borader C-Day hypothesis?

Mr. Seagrave thanks for writing here on the forum; as humble tribute I have tried posting your book around on various mainstream sites like those affiliated with St. Louis Post Dispatch and Des Moines Register. Might seem a waste of time, but these get a lot of viewers, and IF FRAMED THE RIGHT WAY can attract readers to the forum and perhaps get a few extra amazonian sales. I included a review of some of other books by the guy from Harvard in in order to ward off those who would shout "conspiracy theory" on que as if it were a new pledge of allegiance. I held the H like a cross in an exorcism, that's how superfically this term has become! Something to think about in a journalistic environment in which the real McCoys got stung thirty years ago. My question concerns Al Haig and his Saucy "57" bond. Am I correct in infering that this is the only time one of these extra special bonds was cashed? You mention that Haig first visited Bush 41 in an effort to learn how to make the Japanese budge from their position that all of the bonds were frauds. Do you think that this meeting was adversarial or cooperative? I ask this because I am unclear about the relationship between Bush and Haig. I have read in some places that they didn't like each other an there Bush had Haig ejected after Haig's -- some say strategically misquoted-- "Im in charge here" immediately following the Reagan assassination attempt. On the other hand the book Silent Coup seems to implicate Haig in a right wing, CIA connected coup to remove Nixon becasue of opposition to hs moves away from the Gold Standard and towards the USSR and China. Do you have any thoughts on this Haig- Bush relationship or frostbite? Did it effect their meeting over the 57 in any way? I was unaware of Haig's background with McArthur and his little fascist. Are you aware of any links that Haig may have maintained with China OSS types through the years, perhaps via ONI?

Definitely would be a great pick up. I have finished about 2/3rds of Silent Coup and half of Secret Agenda. I was interested in what backround and support each lent the other. They are both fascinating, thats about all I can say at this point. Whether I end up convinced by their argument or not I have become convinced that Watergate was way more complicated than I originally thought, and a perfect example of how elite tinkering at the top of intelligence agencies can be be transformed by the press into a world where day is night and left is right. At least in the US. On the topic of Silent Coup I want to relate a bit from an interview I heard of John Deen on Rhandi Rhodes show. THis show is national on Air America, and reaches about 90 radio stations around the country. Rhodes categorically refuses to criticize democrats, but on the other hand can surpise you by having people like Paul Thompson of 9/11 timeline on. Just when you are ready to label her a prime specimen on "left-gatekeeper' she twitches a bit on the microscope slide. Anyways.. MY POINT: Rhodes set up and John Deen played along with a framework in which she alluded to Silent Coup as a RIGHT WING ATTACK ON DEAN. In other words she was doing the old Hillary Rodham Bush line about a "vast right wing conspiracty" to mobilize the very base of supporters she had been sprinting away from since her days as a Goldwater Girl from the Cop-Suburb of Chicago. (apple..tree) Dean played along in such a way that a couple days later I picked up his latest "Bush is the only thing wrong with our political system" that have been used to make Americans forget that Hillary and Chuck Schumer ACTUALLY DID POSSES MOUTHS AND TONGUES during the years 2001-2006. He mentions the book Silent coup in the introduction and also insinuated that it was a right wing hit piece. Just one problem. Unless my ADD has has flown the coup, Silent Coup describes a hit FROM THE RIGHT ON NIXON. Am I incorrect in this interpretation? The summary of Silent Coup that Rhodes presented to her listeners was probably the most publicity that the book has ever recieved in terms of sheer numbers of listners. Significantly, Rhodes did not even name the title or author of the book, instead offering a charicature of the books arguments that was raw distortion. Certainly no one listening to Rhodes description would want to race out an buy the book, even if she gave her humbled listeners a title. She then proceeded to amble through an utterly agreeable conversation with Dean as if they were good Nation readers, uptails all. Had I not read about the CIA history of left gatekeeping as presented in Frances Stonor Saunders' book about Encounter Magazine, I may not had an inkling that Rhodes set up of Silent Coup as a delusionary right wing fox-fantacy was by design. I am far from certain about this inkling; and yet, it inkles. The implications of Silent Coup are tremendously far reaching in terms of just how controlled and untrustworthy our push-button poodle leashed press really is. It is possible that actions have been taken to prevent it from being read.

Mr. Black: I assume you are joking. If not I'll go ahead and foam, perhaps illiberally. Funny how quick Mr Posner was on the trigger of the Times press. And who could be surprised? Case Closed was given so much coverage in the national mediathat it was impossible to miss. For many it is the only book on the assassination that they have read. This probably account for the 23% or so who believe the Lone Nut gospels. I have never met anyone who has read Posner AND ANOTHER book that comes down on the conspiracy side of the ledger who end up agreeing with Posner. But there is more to my scepticism than that personal experience. You see, I am a school teacher, and we indoctirinate the youngsters-- perhaps misleadingl at this stage of controlled american journalism-- with a quote from the enlightenment:"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" The NYT simply does not allow any meaningful refutation of the Posner Gospels that they peddle page one. When was the last time you saw a pro-conspiracy article on an op ed page of a major US newspaper? I have never seen one. And why should a respectable publisher alow a "buff" into the public forum anyway? Posner uses the term buff as an all-encompasing term to describe anyone from myself to Professor John Newman. Peter Dale Scott--buff. Anthony Summers--buff. Professor Gerald McNight--buff who somehow enjoys exposing himself to ridicule in academic journals by snide professors who have learned to avoid such low status knowlede as the Kennedy Assassination. After all, everytime they read about it in the Nation the word buff is bandied and branded liberaly. Just so the platonists walk the plank of thier flat earth. These Inquisitors of Mass Circulation would not have given Gallileo half a column inch. Empiricism, it was just-- so vulgar! When can we expect to read Posner seriously? When the Times will allow a rebuttal, when they in short begin acting like a newspaper in a democracy. When a book critical of the official government explanation is given one thousandth of the exposure of Case Closeted. Until then the Times meager answer to to Enlightenment plea for the maintainance of a public sphere for rational debate may as well be the Oscar Wilde quote I read on someones sinature line here on the forum: "Arguments are to be avoided. They are always vulgar, and sometimes quite convincing" Perhaps that should be boxed and mastheaded top of page one, Newspaper of (governement) Record.