Paul Rigby

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/23429,featur...d-the-red-scare Aldo Moro and the ‘Commie scare’ Thirty years after his murder we may finally get to know the truth about Aldo Moro, says Robert Fox FIRST POSTED MARCH 14, 2008

Mark Twain, from his essay, “On the decay of the Art of Lying”: Seems to me that lying by omission staged something of a comeback at the hands of the New Left in the 1960s, not least on the subject of CIA support for Eugene McCarthy. Here, too, Pilger passes the NL test with flying colours.

”A motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat, was fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show show exactly the same situation.” http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/L...l_Guardian.html Don't work, Bill: Lane explicity states the stills in Life were taken from the film shown on television. Couldn't be clearer. Second, I have every intention of contacting Lane. He'll be invited to post his recollections directly onto the thread. Unlike you, I don't rely on secret back channels, and publicly cite my sources. Third, how do you know what his response will be? Unless you've contacted him previously, you couldn't possibly know his response. Perhaps you're psychic. Four, if you haven't contacted Lane, you're a hypocrite for chiding others for failure to do so. After all, what's stopping you? The reputation of Mack for bias is legend and justified. A new and different curator of the Museum is another matter. Paul

Well, let's start with a positive: Bogota Ripples is excellent stuff, for which commendation. I shall return to it in future and pay you the deserved compliment of citing it as a source. So, to the negatives: 1) Your attempt to argue that Heroes was an inappropriate place to mention the minor fact that Pilger thought there was a second gunman in the pantry is bizarre, particularly since the book contains both a long, utterly standard New Left attack on RFK, and stuff on a very big CIA conspiracy with regard to Vietnam. If the former was indeed the cynical establishment figure of that NL caricature, what need for an elaborate plot to kill him? In suppressing the information about the presence of a second gunman, Pilger was very obviously protecting the NL party line. Now why would a truly independent - and thoroughly fearless, we are led to believe - investigative journalist do that? Have we run into yet another "left gatekeeper"? 2) Writing that it's hard to argue with the proposition that Sirhan was "one of the shooters" is an opinion, and is very obviously an erroneous one: Had Sirhan fired real bullets, the real assassin, standing right behind the target, might well have had his head blown off. One sees immediately the downside, for the plotters at least, of such an occurrence. 3) Asking questions about the veracity and timing of Pilger's journalism on RFK and his murder is no more a "witchhunt" - good to see that understatement and perspective are alive and well "Down Under" - than any other piece of research. Perhaps I've stepped on a raw Aussie nerve or two? Presumably confirmation that Pilger did suppress all mention of a second gunman in his contemporaneous reportage would transform what you ludicrously style "a witchhunt" into routine research? 4) Why not join in the research on Pilger? Aren't you even a tad curious? I know I am. Paul Couldn’t agree more. After all, it’s only another sixty plus pages on before Pilger introduces the CIA’s creation of “a master illusion” (the republic of Vietnam) and one “Ralph W. McGehee,” who “was for twenty five-years a career officer…and one of the creators of such illusions…an expert in ‘black propaganda,’ which is known today as ‘disinformation’” (Ibid., p.185). Not the remotest connection, there, surely, with the creation of the myth of Sirhan Sirhan as RFK’’s lone-nut assassin? Paul, since Pilger was not pushing a conspiracy or lone nut scenario in the limited space he gave the assassination of RFK in Heroes, your suggestion he should have connected black propaganda ops in Vietnam to the creation of a mythical lone nut assassin re RFK, is asking quite a bit of Pilger - or indeed - anyone who deigns to write a passage or two about such things in a book which does not have conspiracy theories as the main thesis. Likewise with your uncritical acceptance of the “fact” that Sirhan fired real bullets in the pantry. Ease up a bit, mate. I never offered any opinion as to what was fired from Sirhan's weapon. By all means, correct me when I get the facts wrong, but don't put words in my mouth and on the basis of those (your) words, accuse me of anything like "uncritical acceptance". I must have missed the independent investigation into the murder. No matter. Readers of a less establishmentarian cast of mind than your own might care to have a look at a fascinating chapter within The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X (LA: Feral House, 2003), the DiEugenio/Pease anthology. The title of the Lisa Pease- authored chapter in question? The RFK Plot Part 1: The Grand Illusion – see pp.566 -570, in particular. Establishmentarian? You can call me anything, Paul. That's a new one, though, and tremendously funny. Readers of the Assassinations might also like to check out Bogota Ripples - which draws many similarities between Juan Roa Sierra and Sirhran Sirhan, and concludes that Sierra was the probably the first mind controlled assassin of the CIA. Then there's the interesting quesion of Pilger's contemporaneous reportage of the RFK assassination. Is there any mention within it of a second-shooter? I don't know, but I'm beginning to suspect there wasn't. I agree it would be good to know exactly what he said back then. The earliest "second shooter" account from Pilger I have located is in a 1988 edition of New Statement. He calls shopping malls and homicide the twin symbols of the 20th century in the US, and includes in the latter, "the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, the piled dead of Vietnam, the victim of the assassins bullet." "The Ambassador Hotel", he goes on, "can provide the latter" before going on to state the impossibility of Sirhan as Lone Nut, his encounter the next day with a witness to the Polka Dot lady etc. Honestly Paul, before you go lambasting him for what you feel he should have included in Heroes, I think it's up to you to track down exactly what he did say contemporaneously. If he failed to mention in '68 the likelihood of at least one other shooter, I'll be an individual just like you, grab my pitchfork and lamp and join your merry little witch hunt. At least then, I'll know it's warranted. Paul

Couldn’t agree more. After all, it’s only another sixty plus pages on before Pilger introduces the CIA’s creation of “a master illusion” (the republic of Vietnam) and one “Ralph W. McGehee,” who “was for twenty five-years a career officer…and one of the creators of such illusions…an expert in ‘black propaganda,’ which is known today as ‘disinformation’” (Ibid., p.185). Not the remotest connection, there, surely, with the creation of the myth of Sirhan Sirhan as RFK’’s lone-nut assassin? Likewise with your uncritical acceptance of the “fact” that Sirhan fired real bullets in the pantry. I must have missed the independent investigation into the murder. No matter. Readers of a less establishmentarian cast of mind than your own might care to have a look at a fascinating chapter within The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X (LA: Feral House, 2003), the DiEugenio/Pease anthology. The title of the Lisa Pease- authored chapter in question? The RFK Plot Part 1: The Grand Illusion – see pp.566 -570, in particular. Then there's the interesting quesion of Pilger's contemporaneous reportage of the RFK assassination. Is there any mention within it of a second-shooter? I don't know, but I'm beginning to suspect there wasn't. Paul

Actually, I think anytime someone like yourself will run up threads about someone like Lane and what he has said concerning the Zapruder film without first making sure that you are speaking for the man correctly is irresponsible ... especially when you attempt to try and tie him in with supporting your pushing for Zapruder film alteration. Isn't it always the case ... misstate the record - avoid checking your facts - and then use someone like Mark Lane's name to promote your paranoia. If you don't like hearing what I said, then I doubt you'll like hearing what Mark Lane will say about it. Bill Miller I'm fascinated to know, Bill, how quoting Lane verbatim from an early 1963 piece of his constitutes a) "misstating" the record; avoiding checking facts; and c) promoting paranoia? Your third piece of frippery is particularly absurd given the nature of Lane's article. Remind me, what exactly was Lane seeking to achieve with that original defense brief of his - spread contentment with the official line? Translated, all your post amounts to is - "Your citations are accurate, but I don't like the conclusion you draw from them, nor the hypothesis which lead you to look for supporting evidence in the first place." Tough. Now do something constructive for a change and explain what on earth possessed Lane to write of having seen the Zapruder film on TV in Nov-Dec 1963? Paul

A piece of historical revisionism worthy of inclusion in a Soviet-era encyclopedia: Hussein was a creature of the CIA, and it was the US which both instigated his invasion of Iran and furnished him with the weaponry. Just another Langley mass murderer, in other words. Don't forget the likely suffering of those hard-pressed Conservative MPs, many of them down to their last million or so: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...ery-856583.html Blood money: the MPs cashing in on Zimbabwe's misery: Tory frontbenchers are among those with shares in companies accused of propping up the violent – and now illegal – regime in Harare. Jane Merrick and Archie Bland report Sunday, 29 June 2008 To have your say on this or any other issue visit www.independent.co.uk/IoSblogs

Possibly more so re RFK since if memory serves he was there and swore more than one gun was blasting away. But not, Greg, in his 1986 book (reprinted in paperback in 1989), Heroes, in which there is no mention whatever of a second gunman in the relevant passage on RFK's murder (Pan paperback, 1989, pp.128-9). Odd, no? Paul Maybe Paul. I haven't read it, so I can only speculate that perhaps a diversion into assassination conspiracy didn't fit the parameters of the book. There have, I'm sure been a number of books and articles which touch on JFK where no opinion on the assassination is rendered, even though the author believes it to have been the result of a conspiracy. Here's what he told Ms Goodman at Democracy Now: There’s no question that there was another gunman, because one of the people who was hit, just grazed, was standing next to me, and that happened when Sirhan Sirhan had been wrestled to the ground. So that’s the interesting thing. There was another assassin or another several assassins. And then it was bedlam. And as you know, Kennedy died about twenty-four hours later. And here's Pilger working as an assiduous salesman for the official lone-nut nonsense: Defective memory syndrome, perhaps?

AMY GOODMAN: John Pilger, investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker, covered Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign in the last months, was one of the last extended interviews he did with Robert F. Kennedy. He was there, back in the kitchen, when Robert F. Kennedy was shot and assassinated. In his 1986 book, Heroes, Pilger was an assiduous propagator of the official lone assassin guff:

I take it you enjoyed the post, then, Bill? Thought you might. Cheers, Jay, I'll give it a shot. Paul

As a moderator, Evan's action was equivalent to the referee in a soccer match pulling down his shorts and mooning at the players of one side, then pulling his shorts back up and shaking the hand of the captain of the other team. I expect moderators to insist, even handedly, on some sort of order and decorum amidst passionate and heated debate. Evan is a disciple of the Mark Clattenberg school of impartiality, for the benefit of the unitiated. Follow this link for the whole outrageous story. Be warned - you may well weep as you peruse this shameful tale: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle2716956.ece

Turns out CIA-organised and -funded pseudo-gangs - death squads - were at work, on a surprisingly large scale, from the very beginning: Gareth Porter. Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005), pp.89-90. PS Anyone know where John Dolva is these days? Is he well/busy/preoccupied with equally weighty matters?

That is truly one of the most immature and undignified posts I have seen from a moderator on any site. Ever. Servile adherence to the American imperium's lies has that effect. Even on Aussies, ordinarily a robustly independent-minded bunch. A shame.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/L...l_Guardian.html How could Lane write, in an article published in the 19 December 1963 edition of the National Guardian, of having viewed the Zapruder film on television, when, according to the Department of Zapruderland Security and fellow-travellers, the film wasn’t shown on television until 1975? (1). Well, if the hypothesis advanced in the thread Was Muchmore’s film shown on WNEW-TV, New York, on 26 November 1963? – to wit, that the first version of the Z film debuted on that station at 12:46 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, 26 November 1963 - is correct, we have an explanation. So where was Lane 25-26 November 1963? According to the forward to A Citizen’s Dissent: Mark Lane replies (NY: Fawcett Crest, April 1969), in New York. From the same source, we learn that he commenced work on his defence brief for Oswald on Tuesday, 26 November: Lane’s recollection of the showing of the Z film fulfils the classic criteria for preferment as an historical source: it was spontaneous; contemporaneous; and disinterested. It also had recent and related precedent. Just as in the case of Dan Rather and his rather more detailed descriptions of the radically different first version of the Z film, as offered on CBS (radio and TV) on 25 November, Lane could have had no inkling of the plotters’ plans for the film. There never was, it almost passes without remark, formal notice of the first version’s withdrawal for “editing,” merely the announcement that Time-Life had acquired film rights in addition to the still ones. In A Citizen’s Dissent, Lane noted that advance proof sheets of his original defense brief were “sent to the United Press International (UPI) by the Guardian. The UPI responded that they ‘wouldn’t touch it’” (3) No wonder. If the Milwaukee Journal report of 26 November 1963 was accurate, UPI had “obtained” (or, more likely, merely been allocated) the original film rights for the Z film’s first version (4). Lane’s reference to having viewed it on TV would inevitably have set alarm bells ringing within the senior ranks of the organisation: It was now involved in the dissemination of amnesia and confusion with regard to the film, not the film itself.

One of these two men is a right-wing lecher - the other is the President's father.

Possibly more so re RFK since if memory serves he was there and swore more than one gun was blasting away. But not, Greg, in his 1986 book (reprinted in paperback in 1989), Heroes, in which there is no mention whatever of a second gunman in the relevant passage on RFK's murder (Pan paperback, 1989, pp.128-9). Odd, no? Paul

Evan, We've been waiting for Anglo-American to tell the UK and US governments what to do next. Paul

B., Deploy as you see fit! Paul

AMY GOODMAN: John Pilger, investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker, covered Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign in the last months, was one of the last extended interviews he did with Robert F. Kennedy. He was there, back in the kitchen, when Robert F. Kennedy was shot and assassinated. Not quite Pilger's take in 1968, from this piece: So who changed in the intervening 40 years - Pilger, or RFK?

Never researched Pilger's journalism, John, but there is at least one other piece I have, this from the tenth anniversary. Highlights, italics etc., as in the original, save for the bit about Chaney:

Daily Mirror, 22 November 1968, pp.17-18 A wreath in Dallas By John Pilger

I quite agree, Peter, but something nags. Here's Pilger in the pages of the Daily Mirror on the fifth anniversary of the coup that removed JFK and claimed his life. Compare and contrast the characterisation here of RFK as one of three men of "change" with Pilger's recent views on the same figure:

Where would the British state be without them? In jail, in many instances, where they belong. That's if the police were doing their job, of course, and not trying to criminalise legitimate political protest. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-...sks-writer.html

Understatement: I so admire it. Paul

No, Bill, never spoken to the man, but if you are in communication, do ask him for his assistance in clearing up this little mystery. I've even given it a title. Mark Lane and the “quiet transformation” of evidence: The strange case of the vanishing sentence (and left turn) In Mark Lane’s Citizen’s Dissent: Mark Lane Replies (Fawcett Crest, April 1969), he resurrects a line from Hugh Trevor-Roper’s verdict on the efforts of the Warren Commission (1), as to be found in the British historian’s Introduction to Lane’s own Rush To Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald (2). No less fascinating, I can’t help feeling, is the handling of the Zapruder film in the works of Mark Lane. Not so much “quiet” as stealthy: 1) Mark Lane. Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald (London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1966), p.66, footnote 2: So far, then, so clear: Zapruder filmed the turn from Houston onto Elm, precisely as attested by the former on November 22, 1963. Now, two years on, look what happens to the left turn at Lane’s hands: A source is conveniently truncated! 2) Mark Lane’s Citizen’s Dissent: Mark Lane Replies (Fawcett Crest, April 1969), p. 244: Now, if you can't get a straight answer to the strange case of the inexplicably truncated senstence, you could always try blackmail. After all, you've used that before.