David Belin

[Stephen Miller]

Before the Bug and before Posner, there was David Belin. David Belin was the lone theorist you'd love to hate. He became known for his unmovable anti-conspiracy stance no matter how overwhelming the conspiracy evidence was and he had been a staff lawyet for the WC when he was just starting his legal career. Belin is notorious also for the possible subornation of perjury regarding the testimony of Charles Givens. This story has been dealt with elsewhere and most notably by Sylvia Meagher. In 1968, Belin headed the Republican campaign support group Lawyers for Nixon-Agnew and in 1975, his old buddy from the WC, Gerald Ford, hired him to be chief counsel for the Rockefeller ( sometimes know as the "Warrenfeller") Commission.

Do any of the older forum members have more things to add about Belin and also even personal debates or encounters with him?

[Stephen Miller]

I had the impression that Belin was more interested in defending his credibility and reputation rather than debating and finding the truth. After all, he was an establishment man and had good media ties with the NY Times and Washington Post and CBS, frequently making appearances in them to defend his WC work.

What do you think?

[Ron Ecker]

Belin and Gerald Ford coauthored an article, "Commercial Productions Repeat 'Big lie'," which appeared in the 12/22/91 edition of the Gainesville (FL) Sun, and elsewhere I'm sure. The commercial productions of the title were the TV series "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" and Stone's "JFK," with the "big lie" being that "the top echelons of our government were conspiratorially involved."

The article states that "approximately 20 doctors" (we know that Ford wasn't good at counting past the number of his fingers) had examined the autopsy photos and X-rays, and that 19 of them concluded that all shots came from the rear. The 20th doctor or "odd-man-out" was Wecht (though unnamed in the article) who said there was a "simultaneous fourth shot" (from the front?), and that he appears repeatedly in TMWKK, whereas none of the other 19 do.

Belin and Ford also cite "the unequivocal ballistic evidence" that the bullet that struck JFK's head and the bullet that "passed through President Kennedy's neck and struck Governor Connally were fired from Oswald's rifle." (There's the big lie again, a bullet going through JFK's neck.)

The article also argues that Ruby arrived in time to shoot Oswald only because Harry Holmes had coincidentally prolonged the interrogation of Oswald that morning. The viewers of JFK and TMWKK, say Belin and Ford, never hear about Harry Holmes, nor do they learn about "all of the other massive body of evidence which conclusively proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Oswald was the lone gunman."

As I recall, Belin also wrote a front-page Time Magazine article, a preemptive strike, about Stone's "JFK" before the movie was even released.

Edited June 13, 2007 by Ron Ecker

[Stephen Miller]

Just what was Belin thinking? What about that other overwhelming "mountain of evidence"

proving conspiracy?

[Brian LeCloux]

In this scholarly article by Professor David R. Wrone (UW-Stevens Point), the story of the confrontation

between Belin and the dean of the assassination critics, Harold Weisberg is told, and Wrone recounts Sylvia Meagher's

research indicating that Belin, according to Dr. Wrone, suborned perjury for the Warren Commission with witness Charles Givens.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/wrone/Belin.html

[Stephen Miller]

If Belin did suborn perjury for the WC, then he should have been fired from the commission and disbarred. That's a no-no. Instead, the Establishment allowed him to keep his job.

Can you picture Bugliosi suborning perjury as well??