John Simkin
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The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an important feature of Operation Mockingbird and therefore in the media cover-up of the assassination of JFK.
In August 1949, Arthur Koestler, Melvin Lasky, Ruth Fischer and Franz Borkenau, met in Frankfurt to develop a plan where the CIA could be persuaded to fund a left-wing but anti-communist organisation. This plan was then passed onto Michael Josselson, who was chief of its Berlin station for Covert Action. Finally it reached Josselson's boss, Lawrence de Neufville. He later recalled: "The idea came from Lasky, Josselson and Koestler and I got Washington to give it the support it needed. I reported it to Frank Lindsay, and I guess he must have taken it to Wisner. We had to beg for approval. The Marshall Plan was the slush fund used everywhere by CIA at that time, so there was never any shortage of funds. The only struggle was to get approval."
The proposal reached Frank Wisner, the head of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), in January 1950. Wisner was in charge of "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world". Wisner accepted the proposal on 7th April and gave it an original budget of $50,000. Wisner put Michael Josselson in charge but insisted that Melvin Lasky and James Burnham should be "kept out of sight" for the time as they were too well known for their anti-communism. Wisner said he "feared their presence would only provide ammunition to Communist critics".
The first meeting of the Congress for Cultural Freedom took place in Frankfurt on 25th June, 1950. People who attended included Arthur Koestler, Arthur Schlesinger, James Burnham, Sidney Hook, Franz Borkenau, George Schuyler, Melvin Lasky, Hugh Trevor-Roper, James T. Farrell, Tennessee Williams, Ignazio Silone, David Lilienthal, Sol Levitas, Carson McCullers and Max Yergan.
Frances Stonor Saunders, the author of Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War? (1999) has argued: "During the height of the Cold War, the US government committed vast resources to a secret programme of cultural propaganda in western Europe. A central feature of this programme was to advance the claim that it did not exist. It was managed, in great secrecy, by America's espionage arm, the Central Intelligence Agency. The centrepiece of this covert campaign was the Congress for Cultural Freedom, run by CIA agent Michael Josselson... At its peak, the Congress for Cultural Freedom had offices in thirty-five countries, employed dozens of personnel, published over twenty prestige magazines, held art exhibitions, owned a news and features service, organized high-profile international conferences, and rewarded musicians and artists with prizes and public performances. Its mission was to nudge the intelligentsia of western Europe away from its lingering fascination with Marxism and Communism... Membership of this consortium included an assorted group of former radicals and leftist intellectuals whose faith in Marxism and Communism had been shattered by evidence of Stalinist totalitarianism."
In 1966 the New York Times published an article by Tom Wicker that suggested that the CIA had been funding the Congress for Cultural Freedom. On 10th May the newspaper published a letter from Stephen Spender, Melvin Lasky and Irving Kristol. "We know of no indirect benefactions... we are our own masters and part of nobody's propaganda" and defended the "independent record of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in defending writers and artists in both East and West against misdemeanors of all governments including that of the US."
The story of CIA funding of Non-Communist Left journalists and organizations was fully broken in the press by a small-left-wing journal, Rapparts. The editor, Warren Hinckle, met a man by the name of Michael Wood, in January 1967, at the New York's Algonquin Hotel. The meeting had been arranged by a public relations executive Marc Stone (the brother of I. F. Stone). Wood told Hinckle that the National Student Association (NSA) was receiving funding from the CIA. At first Hinkle thought he was being set-up. Why was the story not taken to the left-wing I.F. Stone Weekly?
However, after further research, Hinckle was convinced that the CIA had infiltrated the Non-Communist Left: “While the ADA-types and the Arthur Schlesinger model liberal kewpie dolls battled fascism by protecting their right flank with domestic Red-baiting and Cold War one-upmanship, the Ivy League delinquents who fled to the CIA – liberal lawyers, businessmen, academics, games-playing craftsmen – hatched a master plan of Germanic ambition that entailed nothing less than clandestine political control of the international operations of all important American professional and cultural organisations: journalists, educators, jurists, businessmen, et al. The standing CIA subsidy to the National Student Association was but one slice of a very complex pie.” Hinckle even had doubts about publishing the story. Sol Stern, who was writing the article for Rapparts, “advanced the intriguing contention that such a disclosure would be damaging to the enlightened men of the liberal internationalistic wing of the CIA who were willing to provide clandestine money to domestic progressive causes.”
Hinckle did go ahead with the story and took full-page advertisements in the Tuesday editions of the New York Times and Washington Post: “In its March issue, Ramparts magazine will document how the CIA has infiltrated and subverted the world of American student leaders, over the past fifteen years.” For its exposé of the CIA, Ramparts received the George Polk Memorial Award for Excellence in Journalism and was praised for its “explosive revival of the great muckraking tradition.”
After the article was published Dwight Macdonald angrily asked Josselson: "Do you think I would have gone on the Encounter payroll in 1956-57 had I known there was secret U.S. Government money behind it? One would hesitate to work even for an openly government-financed magazine... I think I've been played for a sucker." Josselson was not impressed with this reaction. He claimed that they were all aware that it had been funded by the CIA. As he pointed out, MacDonald had asked him in 1964 if he could employ his son, Nick, for the summer. "This, at a time when anybody who was anybody had at least heard rumours connecting the Congress to the CIA."
On 20th May 1967 Thomas Braden, the former head of the CIA's International Organizations Division, that had been funding the National Student Association, wrote an article that was published in the Saturday Evening Post entitled, I'm Glad the CIA is Immoral Braden admitted that for more than 10 years, the CIA had subsidized progressive magazines such as Encounter through the Congress for Cultural Freedom - which it also funded - and that one of its staff was a CIA agent. He also admitted that he had paid money to trade union leaders such as Walter Reuther, Jay Lovestone, David Dubinsky and Irving Brown.
According to Frances Stonor Saunders, the author of Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War? (1999): "The effect of Braden's article was to sink the CIA's covert association with the Non-Communist Left once and for all." Braden later admitted that the article had been commissioned by CIA asset, Stewart Alsop.
John Clinton Hunt, a CIA agent who worked very closely with Braden at the International Organizations Division, pointed out in a revealing interview: "Tom Braden was a company man... if he was really acting independently, would have had much to fear. My belief is that he was an instrument down the line somewhere of those who wanted to get rid of the NCL (Non-Communist Left). Don't look for a lone gunman - that's mad, just as it is with the Kennedy assassination... I do believe there was an operational decision to blow the Congress and the other programs out of the water."
The question remains, did the CIA through the Congress for Cultural Freedom control the reporting of the JFK assassination. Does this explain why left-wing journalists such as I.F. Stone, Carey McWilliams and Dwight Macdonald were hosile to the idea of a conspiracy to kill JFK. It also has to be remembered that Arthur Schlesinger was a key figure in the CCF.
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The actor Sterling Hayden, was one of the first famous people to come out as a critic of the Warren Commission. Hayden supported Mark Lane in his attempts to reopen the case and joined the Citizens Committee of Inquiry. Lane pointed out in Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK (1991): "Having almost exhausted the available traditional resources, I turned toward an informal network that had been established years before... I formed an organization... the Citizens Committee of Inquiry. Its purpose, from the time it was founded in 1964, was to bring together people interested in securing the facts about the death of the president. It was clear that an extraordinary response was required to meet the effort of the police and spy organizations to offer a sanitized solution to the murder and to discourage serious inquiry."
Interestingly, Hayden had worked with several future members of the CIA when he was a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War. Hayden also acted in the conspiracy film, Winter Kills (1979), that is based loosely on the JFK assassination.
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Maggie Field was another early researcher who worked closely with others in this group including Mark Lane, Léo Sauvage, Vincent J. Salandria, Harold Feldman, Shirley Martin, Penn Jones, Harold Weisberg, Ray Marcus and Sylvia Meagher.
Field's book on the Kennedy assassination, The Evidence, was rejected by Random House in 1967. She decided to revise the manuscript: "a complete and total revamping of each page". However, she was unable to find a publisher. Her friend, Ray Marcus commented: "I know she was frustrated and disappointed about this, although she rarely said so - it would be super human for her not to be." He believed that if it had been published it would have been one of the most important books on the case.
Maggie Field told the Los Angeles Free Press in December, 1967. "Until we can get to the bottom of the Kennedy assassination, this country is going to remain a sick country. No matter what we do. Because we cannot live with that crime. We just can't. The threat is too great. There are forces in this country who have gotten away with this thing, and will strike again. And not any one of us is safe."
Maggie Field died of a blood disease on 31st July, 1997.
Did anyone get the chance to meet Maggie Field?
http://www.spartacus...k/JFKfieldM.htm
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There is virtually nothing on the web about the important work that Shirley Martin did in the months following the assassination of JFK.
Shirley and her oldest daughter, Victoria, were active supporters of John F. Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential Election. They established a small Democratic headquarters in Hominy, Oklahoma, but had to drive to Tulsa for supplies, such as campaign buttons and stickers. It was a conservative part of the United States and Martin later commented: "We were not popular as the Baptist churches in Hominy were noisily anti-Kennedy."
When Kennedy was assassinated on 22nd November, 1963, Shirley Martin immediately became suspicious that he was a victim of a conspiracy. This feeling was increased when Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby. She began collecting newspaper articles on the death of Kennedy. This included an article by Mark Lane in the National Guardian that appeared on 19th December, 1963. Martin wrote to Lane and offered to help him with his research. She also sent a copy of the article to Marguerite Oswald.
Shirley Martin read one article that claimed Jean Hill and her friend, Mary Moorman, who were taking photographs of the motorcade, thought the shots had come from behind them on the grassy knoll. Martin telephoned Hill on 25th January, 1964. She told Martin that as soon as the firing stopped they ran towards the wooden fence in an attempt to find the gunman. However, they were detained by two secret service men. After searching the two women they confiscated the picture of the assassination.
Hill told Martin that she was very scared as another witness, Warren Reynolds, had been shot in the head by an unknown assailant, the night before: "Mrs Hill told me that she and Miss Moorman had received many threatening phone calls urging them to keep quiet and when they reported these to the Dallas police, they received an official brush-off. Mrs. Hill said Miss Moorman would not talk to me as she was much more frightened and upset over the whole thing than Mrs. Hill was."
Martin also contacted Marguerite Oswald. She sent her Lane's article that had appeared in the National Guardian and then telephoned her about her son. "We were both excited. Here was Richard Coeur de Lion riding to the rescue in the form of a stout-hearted New York lawyer." Martin put Lane in contact with Marguerite who asked him to represent her dead son before the Warren Commission. Lane later recalled: "That I was interested was obvious. Yet there were problems which appeared insurmountable." This included the fact that Lane's sole corporate client had disapproved of his article on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. "Any future similar activity would result in the reluctant, but certain, termination of my services."
On 27th January 1964, Harold Feldman had his article Oswald and the FBI published in The Nation. Feldman started the article with the following words: "The Warren Commission should, if possible, tell us how President Kennedy was killed, who killed him, and why. But beyond that, it must tell us if the FBI or any other government intelligence agency was in any way connected with the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. At this moment, the possibility of such associations in the young man’s life is intolerably a subject for speculation." Feldman then went on to discuss the information reported by Joseph C. Goulden and Alonzo (Lonnie) Hudkins. Feldman argued: "Was the alleged assassin of President Kennedy employed by the FBI? We have seen a news report that the agency tried to recruit him and that it has refused to say whether he accepted the offer. At present, all we know is that his history, as we have been able to piece it together, is not inconsistent with such employment. Indeed, his financial record seems entirely unexplainable unless we make some such hypothesis." Martin contacted Feldman and offered to help him interview the witnesses to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and J. D. Tippit.
In February 1964, Shirley Martin and her daughter Victoria made their first visit to Dallas in order to interview witnesses. This included Ruth Paine who allowed them to look around her home and showed them the place in the garage where the alleged assassination rifle was supposedly stored. Ruth told the Martins that she was convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy. Michael Paine arrived while they were there and seemed very uncomfortable about the women being in his home.
Paine immediately notified the FBI of the Martin's visit. On 29th February, 1964, Ruth Paine was interviewed by James P. Hosty. His report stated: "Mrs. Martin stated she felt the evidence was not fully incriminating as far as Lee Harvey Oswald was concerned and she wanted to satisfy herself as to the facts. She indicated she had spent most of her time in Dallas retracing the route of Oswald following the shooting of President Kennedy and had timed the alleged escape route of Oswald following the shooting. Mrs. Martin stated she did not believe the gun photographed at the police department was the same gun which was being held by Oswald in a picture released to the press later. She referred to a photograph taken sometime prior to the assassination showing Oswald holding a rifle. Since the date of her contact with Mrs. Paine, Mrs. Martin has called on the telephone from her home in Hominy, Oklahoma, many times and has written almost daily letters to Mrs. Paine all along the same line, looking for inconsistencies in the case and seeking to find out why Oswald shot President Kennedy if such was the case." In a subsequent memo J. Edgar Hoover, citing Paine as a source, claimed that Martin was a "bright nut" and a "possible mental case".
On 1st April 1964, Marguerite Oswald announced that Mark Lane was no longer representing the interests of her murdered son. Shirley Martin wrote to Lane explaining the situation: "She is very angry with you... My opinion is that this reaction is piqued by female vanity. Perhaps Mrs. Oswald in her terrible loneliness after the assassination (and the shock was terrible) may have formed a small attachment for you (as a patient can for his analyst); the realization that you couldn't giver her much of your time (nor wanted to) may have brought on this reaction."
Harold Feldman decided to take up Martin's offer and in June 1964, along with his brother-in-law, Vincent J. Salandria, they went to Dallas to visit Helen Markham, the only witness who saw the actual shooting of J. D. Tippit. She refused to talk to them and she reported the visit to the FBI. According to their report on 24th July: "She (Markham) stated she was frightened and did not desire to talk with Mrs. Oswald and the two alleged reporters since she regarded Mrs. Oswald as a mean appearing person."
They also visited the home of Ruth Paine. Her husband, Michael Paine made comments that suggested he had been informed about the background of Salandria: "Why are you working on the assassination? Why don't you stick to your work in civil liberties and civil rights?" Salandria later told Sylvia Meagher: "Michael Paine advised us under questioning of a cross-examination nature, that Oswald was serving as a spy in right-wing organizations." Based on their discussions, Salandria concluded that Paine knew Lee Harvey Oswald much better than his Warren Commission testimony suggested.
While they were visiting Dealey Plaza they were approached by a man who made it clear that he knew who they were. Salandria commented that this was probably connected to the comments made by Michael Paine: "The only plausible explanation was that the killers were advertising to me that my efforts to maintain a low profile in the case were unsuccessful. They were also telling me that I could no longer trust my most loving friends. They were instructing me that I could no longer trust my most loving friends. They were instructing me that I was being watched by the agents of the killers. They were advising me that I had a safe haven, if I gave up the assassination work and continued in my American Civil Liberties Union work... they were transparently advertising to me that they had great power, and that I had none."
Shirley Martin also interviewed Acquilla Clemons who had also seen the events around the killing of J. D. Tippit. As John Kelin, the author of Praise from a Future Generation (2007), has pointed out: "As Shirley Martin, accompanied by her children, interviewed Acquilla Clemons. Mrs. Martin was not at all confident that she would be granted the interview, so her daughter Vickie carried a tape recorder hidden in her purse. Vickie later transcribed the surreptitious recording of their conversation with Mrs. Clemons, and the tape was passed on to Mark Lane. As they prepared for the interview, the Martins did not yet know that, like Helen Markham, Acquilla Clemons had been visited by menacing authorities who advised her not to talk about what she had seen." At first Clemons refused to answer questions but eventually confirmed that two men were involved in the killing.
On the way back they visited Marguerite Oswald, who was living in Fort Worth. It was noted that she seemed to be living in improved circumstances. Vincent J. Salandria reported: "Shirley Martin told me that Marguerite had received money from good people who were interested in her welfare". Martin later commented: "If Marguerite was bought off because she needed money, she did it deliberately, and used the money, and didn't change her thinking one iota."
David Welsh of Ramparts, published an article about Kennedy assassination researchers in November, 1966. It included this passage about the work of Shirley Martin: "If many will treat these amateur investigators as some unique breed of kook, the Dallas police take them seriously. When Shirley Martin, a housewife from Hominy, Oklahoma, made trips to Dallas to interview witnesses, the police would tail her, openly following her car at short distance, and stay in her shadow until she left town."
In late 1966 Shirley Martin was approached by two journalists, Lawrence Schiller and Richard Warren Lewis, who were writing an article about the critics of the Warren Commission. The article was published by the New York World Journal Tribune on 22nd January, 1967. It was followed by a book, The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report (1967) and a record album, The Controversy (1967).
Schiller and Lewis used all three to attack the credibility of critics such as Shirley Martin, Penn Jones, Harold Weisberg, Ray Marcus, Vincent J. Salandria, Mark Lane, Maggie Field and Sylvia Meagher. Martin was described as an "amateur detective with a passion for Agatha Christie mysteries" whereas Penn Jones was dismissed as a "drawling backwoods prophet" and falsely as an alcoholic who carried a "pint of bourbon in his hip pocket". The most savage attack was on Lane: "His wily showmanship helped sway millions of converts. But there were still millions more who realized that Rush to Judgment really belonged on top of the fiction best-seller lists."
Martin continued to work closely with Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg, Ray Marcus, Vincent J. Salandria, Penn Jones, Maggie Field and Sylvia Meagher. Penn Jones told The Texas Observer: "The combined work of Lane, Meagher, Salandria, Shirley Martin, Ray Marcus, Weisberg, and myself should be enough to warrant a new investigation. But I doubt that it will come before ten years."
On 8th September, 1967, Shirley Martin's oldest daughter, Victoria, who had accompanied her mother to Dallas to interview witnesses, was with her friend Candy in a Volkswagen Beetle, that was "sideswiped" by another car. Candy died the next day but Victoria, who sustained twenty-four broken bones in the crash, lingered for four days before dying of her injuries. After the death of her daughter Shirley Martin gave up research into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As she had worked with Penn Jones on the death of witnesses, she no doubt thought she was being told to give up the investigation.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmartinSH.htm
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Available information suggests that there were about 500,000 deaths from all causes during the Spanish Civil War. An estimated 200,000 died from combat-related causes. Of these, 110,000 fought for the Republicans and 90,000 for the Nationalists. This implies that 10 per cent of all soldiers who fought in the war were killed. It has been calculated that the Nationalist Army executed 75,000 people in the war whereas the Republican Army accounted for 55,000. Around 10,000 Spanish people were also killed in bombing raids. The vast majority of these were victims of the German Condor Legion. It is estimated that about 5,300 foreign soldiers died while fighting for the Nationalists (4,000 Italians, 300 Germans, 1,000 others). The International Brigades also suffered heavy losses during the war. Approximately 4,900 soldiers died fighting for the Republicans (2,000 Germans, 1,000 French, 900 Americans, 500 British and 500 others). The economic blockade of Republican controlled areas caused malnutrition in the civilian population. It is believed that this caused the deaths of around 25,000 people. All told, about 3.3 per cent of the Spanish population died during the war with another 7.5 per cent being injured. This book attempts to capture the tragic nature of these events.
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In the three months that followed the election of Abraham Lincoln, seven states seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Representatives from these seven states quickly established a new political organization, the Confederate States of America. On 8th February the Confederate States of America adopted a constitution and within ten days had elected Jefferson Davis as its president and Alexander Stephens, as vice-president. Montgomery, Alabama, became its capital and the Stars and Bars was adopted as its flag. Davis was also authorized to raise 100,000 troops. At his inaugural address, President Lincoln attempted to avoid conflict by announcing that he had no intention "to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." He added: "The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors." President Davis took the view that after a state seceded from the union, federal forts became the property of the state. On 12th April, 1861, General Pierre T. Beauregard demanded that Major Robert Anderson surrender Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour. Anderson replied that he would be willing to leave the fort in two days when his supplies were exhausted. Beauregard rejected this offer and ordered his Confederate troops to open fire. After 34 hours of bombardment the fort was severely damaged and Anderson was forced to surrender. This event was the start of a civil war that was to last for four years.
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Since his assassination in 1947, Gandhi has become one of the most loved and respected political leaders of all time. Louis Fischer, one of his biographers, claims that he is the greatest figure to emerge since Jesus Christ. The scientist, Albert Einstein, who was not known to exaggerate and had a considerable reputation for seeking the truth, commented after Gandhi's death: "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked this earth." The main reason why Gandhi is so highly respected is that he was a man of peace. The 20th Century has been an extremely destructive period in world history and Gandhi was one of the few leaders of the dispossessed to have constantly advocated the use of non-violent action to solve political problems. However, some critics have claimed that he was a man who had failed to come to terms with the modern world. Others would argue that the world's only hope for survival is to adopt Gandhi's belief that only love can conquer violence. Whatever your final judgement may be, I hope you agree that his actions as well as his opinions are well worth considering.
http://www.amazon.co...56351152&sr=1-7
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One of the last things Penn Jones wrote on the subject was in a letter to John Kelin on 7th December, 1993. "I met both John and Robert Kennedy and they were two of the finest, bravest and most honest men ever to serve in politics. They gave their all for this country and took nothing in return. We will never see the likes of them again. Men of their type don't turn up more than every few generations. The best of all is gone and we are left with the dregs... We lost our democracy on November 22nd and we have never regained it yet. I won't live long enough to see it return, but I hope you do."
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John can you post the full text?
You can find it here:
http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php?id=69419
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I have recently found an excellent article by Van Hetherly in The Houston Chronicle (26th July, 1964) on Penn Jones. It helps to explain what Jones had to face being a newspaper editor in Midlothian, Texas in the 1960s:
On a May night in 1962, the chaotic career of Texas' toughest country editor reached a violent climax. Someone had hurled a home made fire bomb (a can of cleansing fluid with a fuse) into the office of Jones' Midlothian Mirror, leaving it a charred shambles....
Three days later it crackled off the press just as it had every Thursday. as sassy and irrelevant as ever. Its appearance sparked mixed reactions among the 1800 souls in Midlothian, most of whom commute to jobs in Dallas, a half hour away. Jones figures two thirds of them applauded the unnamed bomber...
Why this animosity toward Jones: For one thing he is a liberal Democrat in a town where political tastes run to the far right. Secondly, he's a sworn foe of locked-door doings by public officials... The pugnacious publisher pulls no punches in his fight against what he calls the town's aristocracy, the larger landowners and old families who influence public affairs. Jones freely claims voting irregularities, ineptness and plain fraud.
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On 22nd November, 1963, Penn Jones went to Dallas to see President John F. Kennedy speak at the Dallas Trade Mart. While he was having lunch he heard that Kennedy had been shot in Dealey Plaza. He immediately rushed to Parkland Hospital. Penn Jones had a camera and began taking pictures of the presidential limousine and the crowds gathering outside the hospital. In his report of the assassination that appeared in his newspaper he wrote: "We think the disgrace of Dallas may well hang on its conscience for many years. This is truly a dark day for the world, for America, for Texas, and especially Dallas."
Penn Jones spent the next few months investigating the death of Kennedy and wrote about the case in Midlothian Mirror. A fellow researcher, Gary Mack, later explained: "Penn was one of the first generation of researchers who felt the government was behind the assassination - probably a conspiracy involving military intelligence... He always thought LBJ was behind it somehow."
Penn Jones published his collection of Midlothian Mirror articles on the Kennedy assassination in the book, Forgive My Grief: Volume One in May 1966. He printed 7,500 copies of the small paperback. It included a preface by fellow journalist, John Howard Griffin, who described Penn Jones as a man "moved by a profound sense of responsibility toward his country, toward truth and toward evidence. The truth risks being unspeakably ugly in this instance."
The book was mainly a critique of the Warren Commission Report. He argued that the testimony of several witnesses suggested a conspiracy had taken place but this had been downplayed or ignored by the report. This included the evidence of Roger Craig, who was on duty in Dallas at the time John F. Kennedy was killed. Craig ran towards the Grassy Knoll where he interviewed witnesses to the shooting. About 15 minutes later he saw a man running from the back door of the Texas School Book Depository down the slope to Elm Street. He then got into a Nash station wagon. Craig saw the man again in the office of Captain Will Fritz. It was the recently arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. When Craig told his story about the man being picked up by the station wagon, Oswald replied: "That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine... Don't try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it."
Forgive My Grief: Volume One also dealt with the deaths of several witnesses and investigators. This included the deaths of Dorothy Kilgallen, Bill Hunter, Jim Koethe, Tom Howard, Florence Pritchett Smith and Karyn Kupcinet. "Now we can add to that list of strange deaths that of Miss Dorothy Kilgallen. Miss Kilgallen joins Bill Hunter, Jim Koethe, Tom Howard and others. Miss Kilgallen is the only journalist who was granted a private interview with Jack Ruby since he killed Lee Oswald. Judge Joe B. Brown granted the interview during the course of the Ruby trial in Dallas – to the intense anger of the hundreds of other news people present.... Also strangely, Miss Kilgallen's close friend, Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, died two days after Miss Kilgallen. Mrs. Smith's autopsy read that the cause of death was unknown."
Other deaths he considered to be suspicious included that of Karyn Kupcinet: "A few days before the assassination, Karyn Kupcinet, 23, was trying to place a long distance telephone call from the Los Angeles area. According to reports, the long distance operator heard Miss Kupcinet scream into the telephone that President Kennedy was going to be killed. Two days after the assassination, Miss Kupcinet was found murdered in her apartment. The case has never been solved."
Earlene Roberts, died of a heart attack in Parkland Hospital on 9th January, 1966. Roberts, who had rented an apartment to Lee Harvey Oswald, testified before the Warren Commission that Oswald arrived home at around 1.00 p.m. on 22nd November, 1963. He stayed only a few minutes but while he was in the house a Dallas Police Department car parked in front of the house. In the car were two uniformed policemen. Roberts described how the driver sounded the horn twice before driving off. Soon afterwards Oswald left the house. Penn Jones argued: "Mrs. Roberts has joined the long list of persons who had first hand information, but are now dead." He went on to argue: "With the mounting list of these deaths, the likelihood grows that these people have been systematically and skillfully eliminated."
The book was criticised by some researchers as being "over speculative". Warren Hinckle, the editor of Ramparts Magazine, also found it difficult to believe. He wrote: "Penn Jones, Jr., of Midlothian, a small former cotton town some twenty-five miles out of Dallas. The sleuths said he had discovered at least thirteen deaths that were mysteriously related to the assassination of President Kennedy." Hinckle contacted John Howard Griffin: "Disbelieving, I had called John Howard Griffin, a neighbor, Texas style, of Jones, living only some forty miles distant. I asked if he knew this Penn Jones, and if so, what sort of a nut was he?" Griffin replied: "Penn's a good fellow. He's the scrappiest editor in Texas. If he says there's been a series of deaths, I'm sure there's substance to it." Hinckle added: "John Griffin would say something nice about a man who had just run over him, but he would never misstate a fact, or give a false impression; if he took the King Tut's curse in stride, then there had to be something to it."
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Why the US media ignored Murdoch's brazen bid to hijack the presidency
Did the Washington Post and others underplay the story through fear of the News Corp chairman, or simply tin-eared judgment?
ThGuardian, Thursday 20 December 2012 11.41 EST
So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence of Rupert Murdoch's ultimate and most audacious attempt – thwarted, thankfully, by circumstance – to hijack America's democratic institutions on a scale equal to his success in kidnapping and corrupting the essential democratic institutions of Great Britain through money, influence and wholesale abuse of the privileges of a free press.
In the American instance, Murdoch's goal seems to have been nothing less than using his media empire – notably Fox News – to stealthily recruit, bankroll and support the presidential candidacy of General David Petraeus in the 2012 election.
Very interesting in the way that the American press treated this story.
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Does anyone know if Penn Jones' books, Forgive My Grief I (1966), Forgive My Grief II (1967), Forgive My Grief III (1974), and Forgive My Grief VI (1976), are available online?
I've never seen them available online. The Poage Library has some copies of his newsletter The Continuing Inquiry.
Only some of the volumes are available at Amazon. The cheapest copy is going for £714.00
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Does anyone know if Penn Jones' books, Forgive My Grief I (1966), Forgive My Grief II (1967), Forgive My Grief III (1974), and Forgive My Grief VI (1976), are available online?
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In 1946 Jones purchased the local newspaper, Midlothian Mirror (circulation - 810) for $4,000. John Kelin has pointed out in his book, Praise from a Future Generation (2007): "It remained a weekly newspaper under the stewardship of Jones, and retained its small-town flavor, but Jones injected it with new vitality. He was not only its owner, but its publisher, editor and reporter as well. He was assisted by his wife, the former Louise Angrove." In one of his first editorials Jones wrote: "We intend to insult those people who fail or refuse to fulfill the obligations or responsibilities they have inherited along with their citizenship in the greatest country on earth."
In August 1956 Jones joined with a friend, the writer John Howard Griffin, in a campaign to desegregate schools in Mansfield, some twelve miles west of Midlothian. The city was the first Texas school district ordered by a Federal court to allow blacks to attend its public schools. This led to Ku Klux Klan protests and angry crowds of up to 400 people surrounded Mansfield High School for several days in order to prevent African American enrollment. Jones argued: "In Mansfield, the people were afraid of the bullies and also ashamed of the publicity they were making." Despite the efforts of Jones and Griffin the school remained segregated.
Jones also campaigned for increased spending on black schools. His liberal views resulted in him being described by conservative elements in the town as a "communist". Jones continued to argue for equal civil rights. He later commented: "You have to fight a little bit for democracy every day... If everyone were working at democracy, wouldn't the flower have beautiful blooms? But so many people won't vote, won't participate, won't argue, won't life a finger to keep freedom of their forefathers alive right here in America."
In 1962 the Midlothian School Board allowed a representative from the John Birch Society to address students. Attendance was compulsory and his oldest son told Penn Jones that the speaker, Edgar W. Seay, used the occasion to attack Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy. Jones complained to the school's principal, Roy Irvin, but he refused to allow a liberal, Sarah T. Hughes to address the students. Hughes, who lived in Dallas, was recently appointed by Kennedy to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. She was therefore the first woman to serve as a federal district judge in Texas.
Seay went to visit Jones in his office. After a short discussion the two men became involved in a fight that was broken up by the police. Three days later, at 2:30 a.m. on 30th April 1962, someone set fire to the Midlothian Mirror newspaper offices. Investigators concluded that an incendiary device had been thrown through the front-door window. Jones was convinced that it was the work of right-wing extremists. There was little sympathy for Jones in the highly conservative town of Midlothian. One of the women in the town is reported to have said: "Some mighty bad things have happened to Mr. Jones, and he deserved every one of them." The arson attack appeared on national news and several months later he was the recipient of the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism.
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One of the great heroes of early JFK assassination research was Penn Jones Jr. He was one of eight children of sharecroppers (three died in infancy). Born in Annona, Texas, on 15th October, 1914, he later recalled: "when I was growing up in my home we got few things above the essentials, but my mother and father were doing the best they could."
Jones did well at school. One of his friends commented: "Penn was an old bulldog. Never quit on anything. He was determined to be first in whatever he did." Jones was a hobo during the Great Depression and then worked his way through the University of Texas at Austin by working in various unskilled occupations including picking cotton for 35 cents a day.
In 1935 he was taught by an economics teacher who was later credited by Penn Jones as "making him a liberal". The following year he began taking law classes and his classmates included John Connally and Henry Wade. He left university in June 1940 without graduating and joined the United States Army and stationed in Austin he became a lieutenant in the 36th Infantry Division. On the outbreak of the Second World War he was sent overseas and was involved in the invasion at Salerno. By the end of the war he had received the Bronze Star and eight battle stars, and held the rank of captain.
The experience of war radicalized him. Jones later recalled: "How can we have lasting peace? Unless every man has a definite answer to that question, he ought to be trying his best to find an answer... I promised the body of my best friend. I have promised bodies with no heads, bodies with no faces. I have promised every dead soldier that I'd do my best to see that their death was not in vain... I thought that with proper leadership and guidance we (United States) could be a real force for good in the world."
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Salandria published his first article on the JFK assassination in the Legal Intelligencer on 2nd November, 1964. He suggested he had not been killed by a lone gunman. He argued: "First, with reference to the source of the shots, it is not central to my thesis that the Warren Commission erred in determining that three shots came from the Book Depository Building. On the contrary, I am willing to concede for the purposes of this presentation that three shots did come from the Book Depository Building. But I will endeavor to prove that all the evidence of the Commission's Report points up that another shot or shots came from a source other than the Depository Building." Gaeton Fonzi thought Salandria was crazy when he read the article. As he later explained: "You have to remember what a discordant thing it was in 1964 to hear that an official government report might be wrong - especially a weighty one issued by a panel of public stature."
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There is something strange about Harold Feldman's article on the assassination, Oswald and the FBI. Feldman submitted the article to The Nation in December 1963 (he acknowledged the article in a letter dated 23rd December). On 6th January 1964, Carey McWilliams, the editor of the magazine, wrote to Feldman rejecting the article. This is not surprising as McWilliams had already told his leading investigative journalist, Fred J. Cook, who was convinced there was a conspiracy, that he was unwilling to send him to Dallas, to report on the assassination.
McWilliams had already rejected an article by Mark Lane on the case. Lane later recalled: “The obvious choice, I thought, was the Nation. Its editor, Carey McWilliams, was an acquaintance. He had often asked me to write a piece for him… McWilliams seemed pleased to hear from me and delighted when I told him I had written something I wished to give to the Nation. When he learned of the subject matter, however, his manner approached panic.” McWilliams told Lane: “We cannot take it. We don’t want it. I am sorry but we have decided not to touch that subject.”
McWilliams later recalled (2nd November, 1964) that he had argued in The Nation on 28th December, 1963: "The Nation would stoutly resist the temptation to enter the ranks of the rapidly expanding army of amateur 'private eyes' and miscellaneous free-lance James Bonds who were even then busy as beavers mass-producing conspiracies among unnamed 'oil millionaires' and offering each day a new theory of President Kennedy’s assassination…. We said then that we would not add to the confusion and uncertainty... until an official version of the facts was available."
On 6th January 1964 McWilliams told Feldman: "I have decided - most reluctantly, I must confess - not to use your piece. It is certainly a well-done job, and I was sorely tempted, but it seems to me that on balance and for a variety of reasons we should not use it at this time." However, a few days later, McWilliams changed his mind: "We have made some cuts, but I think they are all to the good." The article was published on 27th January.
One of the fascinating aspects of this is that the Feldman article includes the following: "On January 1, Lonnie Hudkins of the Houston Post, published a story under the headline: “Oswald Rumored as Informant for U.S.” Hudkins found that Oswald did know agent Hosty. He had Hosty’s home phone, office phone and car license number - this on the authority of William Alexander, assistant to Henry Wade, Dallas District Attorney."
This means that Feldman has included details of Hudkins article that appeared after he had submitted Oswald and the FBI. Does this mean that McWilliams added information as well as making cuts? It also raises the issue of why did McWilliams reject articles by Lane, Cook and Feldman and then all of a sudden, change his mind about the article Oswald and the FBI.
We now know that Joseph C. Goulden, a former counter-intelligence agent, who reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer, on 8th December, 1963, that alleged that "the Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to recruit Oswald as an undercover informant in Castro groups" two months before the assassination, was a close friend of David Attlee Phillips. What this part of a CIA disinformation campaign?
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Using New Technologies to Enhance Teaching and Learning in History has just been published by Routledge. It includes articles by Terry Hadyn (What does it mean to be good at ICT as a history teacher and We Need to talk about PowerPoint), Neal Watkin (The history utility belt: getting learners to express themselves digitally), Ali Messer (History Wikis), Arthur Chapman (Using discussion forums to support historical learning), Dan Lyndon (Using blogs and podcasts in the history classroom), Richard Jones-Nerzic (Documentary film making in the history classroom), Terry Haydn (We need to talk about PowerPoint), John Simkin (Making the most of the Spartacus Educational website), Ben Walsh (Signature pedagogies, assumptions and assassins: ICT and motivation in the history classroom), Johannes Ahrenfelt (Immersive learning in the history classroom: how social media can help meet the expectations of a new generation of learners), Alf Wilkinson (What can you do with an interactive whiteboard?), Nick Dennis and Doug Belshaw (Tools for the tech savvy history teacher) and Janos Blasszauer (History webquests).
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On 11th April, 1966, Nation Magazine published an article by Jacob Cohen, criticising the work of Cook and Edward Jay Epstein for not accepting the findings of the Warren Commission. This time there was no editorial disclaimer. Cook was furious with Carey McWilliams and insisted he ran his reply without deleting a single word, or he would never write for the magazine again. McWilliams agreed to do this and Cook's letter that appeared on 22nd August dismantled every point that Cohen had made.
Although Fred Cook did not mention Cohen by name in his book, he did recount the following story. Cohen's statement to Vince Salandria became the title of Cook's chapter on the Kennedy assassination.
The author of the back-stabbing exercise that so infuriated me had announced that he was going to withdraw from the ivy halls, become a full-time free-lance writer, and produce a book that would silence all critics and vindicate the Warren Commission. In my reply, I pointed out that I knew how extremely difficult it was to make a living by free-lance writing. I didn't believe it could be done by someone who hadn't established a broad reputation in the field, and I was convinced that the man who had done a job on me must be privately financed by some government agency like the CIA.
There was never a rebuttal to this accusation. A couple of reactions came from other sources: from Tom Caton, who had been a professor at Monmouth College, in West Long Branch, New Jersey, and Vince Salandria. Their feeling was that, once the report was exposed and the assassination issue raised, agencies were going to have to take out after somebody. They had both met the back-stabbing author of the Nation article and asked him why he had gone out of his way to take such vicious potshots at me. He told them that he had done it "for that very reason" -- because he wanted to discredit me in my own forum.
Sometime later, in that summer of 1966, I got a late-night phone call from Vince Salandria. He was in Boston, where he had just had a debate with my Nation back-stabber. Salandria was excited. "Fred, I told him that you had accused him of being a CIA front -- and he did not deny it. He did not deny it!"
After the debate, Salandria said, he and his opponent had a long, private bull-session. "He's a very disturbed person," Salandria told me, "and I wound up feeling sorry for him. He has a lot of conflicts within himself, and he finally admitted that he knows we are right, but he said: 'The truth is too terrible. The American people would never be able to stand it.' In the end, however, he said he was not going to write the book." And he never did.
This is really interesting. In the CIA secret report written on 4th January, 1967, about the work of conspiracy writers, Joachim Joesten, Mark Lane, Leo Sauvage, Bertrand Russell, Carl Marzani, etc. ends with the words: "There are hopeful signs: Joacob Cohen is writing a book which will appear in 1967 under the title Honest Verdict, defending the Commission report... But further criticism will no doubt appear."
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There is something strange about Harold Feldman's article on the assassination, Oswald and the FBI. Feldman submitted the article to The Nation in December 1963 (he acknowledged the article in a letter dated 23rd December). On 6th January 1964, Carey McWilliams, the editor of the magazine, wrote to Feldman rejecting the article. This is not surprising as McWilliams had already told his leading investigative journalist, Fred J. Cook, who was convinced there was a conspiracy, that he was unwilling to send him to Dallas, to report on the assassination.
McWilliams had already rejected an article by Mark Lane on the case. Lane later recalled: “The obvious choice, I thought, was the Nation. Its editor, Carey McWilliams, was an acquaintance. He had often asked me to write a piece for him… McWilliams seemed pleased to hear from me and delighted when I told him I had written something I wished to give to the Nation. When he learned of the subject matter, however, his manner approached panic.” McWilliams told Lane: “We cannot take it. We don’t want it. I am sorry but we have decided not to touch that subject.”
McWilliams later recalled (2nd November, 1964) that he had argued in The Nation on 28th December, 1963: "The Nation would stoutly resist the temptation to enter the ranks of the rapidly expanding army of amateur 'private eyes' and miscellaneous free-lance James Bonds who were even then busy as beavers mass-producing conspiracies among unnamed 'oil millionaires' and offering each day a new theory of President Kennedy’s assassination…. We said then that we would not add to the confusion and uncertainty... until an official version of the facts was available."
On 6th January 1964 McWilliams told Feldman: "I have decided - most reluctantly, I must confess - not to use your piece. It is certainly a well-done job, and I was sorely tempted, but it seems to me that on balance and for a variety of reasons we should not use it at this time." However, a few days later, McWilliams changed his mind: "We have made some cuts, but I think they are all to the good." The article was published on 27th January.
One of the fascinating aspects of this is that the Feldman article includes the following: "On January 1, Lonnie Hudkins of the Houston Post, published a story under the headline: “Oswald Rumored as Informant for U.S.” Hudkins found that Oswald did know agent Hosty. He had Hosty’s home phone, office phone and car license number - this on the authority of William Alexander, assistant to Henry Wade, Dallas District Attorney."
This means that Feldman has included details of Hudkins article that appeared after he had submitted Oswald and the FBI. Does this mean that McWilliams added information as well as making cuts? It also raises the issue of why did McWilliams reject articles by Lane, Cook and Feldman and then all of a sudden, change his mind about the article Oswald and the FBI.
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In the CIA report, Background Survey of Books Concerning the Assassination of President Kennedy (4th January, 1967), it stated: "William Manchester's not-et-published The Death of a President is at this writing being purged of material personally objectionable to Mrs. Kennedy."
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In 1975 Vincent Salandria told Gaeton Fonzi: "I'm afraid we were misled. All the critics, myself included, were misled very early. I see that now. We spent too much time and effort microanalyzing the details of the assassination when all the time it was obvious, it was blatantly obvious that it was a conspiracy. Don't you think that the men who killed Kennedy had the means to do it in the most sophisticated and subtle way? They chose not to. Instead, they picked the shooting gallery that was Dealey Plaza and did it in the most barbarous and openly arrogant manner. The cover story was transparent and designed not to hold, to fall apart at the slightest scrutiny. The forces that killed Kennedy wanted the message clear: 'We are in control and no one - not the President, nor Congress, nor any elected official - no one can do anything about it.' It was a message to the people that their Government was powerless."
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In June 1964, Harold Feldman and Vincent J. Salandria went to Dallas to visit Marguerite Oswald. They then went together to interview Helen Markham, the only witness who saw the actual shooting of J. D. Tippit. She refused to talk to them and she reported the visit to the FBI. According to their report on 24th July: "She (Markham) stated she was frightened and did not desire to talk with Mrs. Oswald and the two alleged reporters since she regarded Mrs. Oswald as a mean appearing person."
They also visited the home of Ruth Paine. Her husband, Michael Paine made comments that suggested he had been informed about the background of Salandria: "Why are you working on the assassination? Why don't you stick to your work in civil liberties and civil rights?" Vincent J. Salandria later told Sylvia Meagher: "Michael Paine advised us under questioning of a cross-examination nature, that Oswald was serving as a spy in right-wing organizations." Based on their discussions, Salandria concluded that Paine knew Lee Harvey Oswald much better than his Warren Commission testimony suggested.
Feldman and Salandria also interviewed Acquilla Clemons who had also seen the events around the killing of Tippit . Salandria later recalled: "I thought she was entirely credible." According to Clemons the gunman was a "short guy and kind of heavy". The other man was tall and thin in khaki trousers and a white shirt. The Dallas Police warned her not to repeat this story to others or "she might get hurt".
While they were visiting Dealey Plaza they were approached by a man who made it clear that he knew who they were. Salandria commented that this was probably connected to the comments made by Michael Paine: "The only plausible explanation was that the killers were advertising to me that my efforts to maintain a low profile in the case were unsuccessful. They were also telling me that I could no longer trust my most loving friends. They were instructing me that I could no longer trust my most loving friends. They were instructing me that I was being watched by the agents of the killers. They were advising me that I had a safe haven, if I gave up the assassination work and continued in my American Civil Liberties Union work... they were transparently advertising to me that they had great power, and that I had none."
FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
It is interesting that the FBI's main concern was with her left-wing friend, Frederick Vanderbilt Field. It has to be remembered that this was a period when the blacklist was still operating in Hollywood. Field had given financial help to blacklisted writers such as Ring Lardner Jr., Dalton Trumbo, Hugo Butler, Jean Rouverol and Albert Maltz. He even went to live with them in Mexico (as did Martha Dodd).
Some liberals in Hollywood wanted to bring an end to the blacklist (it of course was rerally a strategy to keep liberal ideas out of Hollywood and had very little to do with communism). In 1959 Frank Sinatra announced that he proposed to break the blacklist by employing Albert Maltz as the screenwriter of his proposed film, The Execution of Private Slovik, based on the book by William Bradford Huie. Sinatra soon came under attack for his decision. He nearly came to blows with John Wayne, who called him a "Commie" when they met in the street. However, what really hurt Sinatra was the criticism he received in the press. This included claims that his friend, John F. Kennedy, also wanted an end to the blacklist. Sinatra issued a statement to the press: "I would like to comment on the attacks from certain quarters on Senator John Kennedy by connecting him with my decision on employing a screenwriter. This type of partisan politics is hitting below the belt... I make movies. I do not ask the advice of Senator Kennedy on whom I should hire. Senator Kennedy does not ask me how he should vote in the Senate."
Michael Freedland, the author of Witch-Hunt in Hollywood (2009) argues that "Kennedy didn't like the association with the name of one of the Hollywood Ten. He would soon run from President and he was worried that he could harm him." A few days later Sinatra took out another paid-for advertisement in the newspapers: "In view of the reaction of my family, friends and the American public I've instructed my lawyers to make a settlement with Albert Maltz. My conversations with Maltz indicate that he has an affirmative, pro-American approach to the story, but the American public has indicated it feels that the morality of hiring Maltz is the most crucial matter and I will accept this majority opinion."
In 1960 Trumbo became the first blacklisted writer to use his own name when he wrote the screenplay for the film Spartacus. Based on the novel by another left-wing blacklisted writer, Howard Fast, is a film that examines the spirit of revolt. Trumbo refers back to his experiences of the House of Un-American Activities Committee. At the end, when the Romans finally defeat the rebellion, the captured slaves refuse to identify Spartacus. As a result, all are crucified. Ironically, much of Spartacus was filmed on land owned by William Randolph Hearst. It was Hearst's newspapers that played such an important role in making McCarthyism possible.
As Ring Lardner Jr., another member of the Hollywood Ten, pointed out in his autobiography, I'd Hate Myself in the Morning (2000): “Sinatra caved in, paying off Maltz in cash and eventually scrubbing the project, perhaps partly out of fear of harming his friend John F. Kennedy, a candidate for President at the time. (Following the election that fall, however, the President-elect and his brother, Attorney-General-to-be Robert Kennedy, crossed a picket line to see Spartacus at a theater in Washington D.C., and pronounced it good.)”
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmaltz.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAtrumbo.htm