Why we will never find out the truth about the death of JFK

[J. Raymond Carroll]

if Oswald wrote "taken prisoner" and not "arrested" it implies he was afraid of being arrested for political reasons, not criminal reasons.

THe FBI did not confirm it, but there is evidence somewhere (don't recall exactly) that around this time LHO walked around Dallas carrying a HANDS OFF CUBA placard. It would not have been unreasonable for him to suppose that such behavior could get him beaten up and/or arrested (after all, such a prediction would have proven true in 1963 New Orleans). Larry Ray Harris researched this issue and was convinced that it actually happened.

So there is a logical explanation for the note he left Marina that has nothing to do with Walker.

Guinn's NAA was the HSCA's lynchpin in pinning the Walker shooting on LHO, but alas for the accusers Guinn's NAA has now been exposed as JUNK SCIENCE and ruled inadmissable in state and Federal courts.

Since Marina's (hearsay) testimony is legally inadmissable as evidence because of spousal immunity, and there is positive evidence of a shooter OTHER THAN LHO, there is NOTHING on which to build a case against LHO. Attempting to use the Walker shooting against LHO shows nothing except the accuser's BIAS.

[Paul Baker]

I never thought about it before, but if Oswald wrote "taken prisoner" and not "arrested" it implies he was afraid of being arrested for political reasons, not criminal reasons.

Perhaps Lee didn't know the Russian for 'arrested'. In any case, what about 'If I am alive'? Do you think he expected to get shot for political reasons?

Paul.

[Pat Speer]

I never thought about it before, but if Oswald wrote "taken prisoner" and not "arrested" it implies he was afraid of being arrested for political reasons, not criminal reasons.

Perhaps Lee didn't know the Russian for 'arrested'. In any case, what about 'If I am alive'? Do you think he expected to get shot for political reasons?

Paul.

This was Texas in the 60's. Birchers and the Klan. A pro-communist protester was undoubtedly at risk.

That said, however, I must admit I tend to think Oswald actually did shoot at Walker. Not sure why. But it seems possible the shooting was a set-up to get Walker some publicity whilst simultaneously giving Oswald some cred as a revolutionary-a wanna-be killer of fascists. This cred would have come in handy, should he have been asked to convince Kostikov and/or the Cubans of his bona fides.

[Harry J.Dean]

I never thought about it before, but if Oswald wrote "taken prisoner" and not "arrested" it implies he was afraid of being arrested for political reasons, not criminal reasons.

Perhaps Lee didn't know the Russian for 'arrested'. In any case, what about 'If I am alive'? Do you think he expected to get shot for political reasons?

Paul.

This was Texas in the 60's. Birchers and the Klan. A pro-communist protester was undoubtedly at risk.

That said, however, I must admit I tend to think Oswald actually did shoot at Walker. Not sure why. But it seems possible the shooting was a set-up to get Walker some publicity whilst simultaneously giving Oswald some cred as a revolutionary-a wanna-be killer of fascists. This cred would have come in handy, should he have been asked to convince Kostikov and/or the Cubans of his bona fides.

I recall that Walker said his attempted assassins were traced to Southern California!

[Michael Hogan]

Cliff, I'm disappointed that you think that even approximates what I meant by the truth. I don't think that's what John Simkin meant either.

Fair enough. In that case the truth is known, imo. It was known in large part the night of the assassination.

Cliff, again I think you miss the context of "truth." This is John Simkin's statement that formed the title of this thread and to which I initially responded.

I have come to the conclusion that we will never discover the truth about the people behind the assassination of JFK.

Surely, the truth to which you are referring ("known in large part the night of the assassination") is a different issue.

And besides, if what you claim is true, the prima facie case for conspiracy preceded Salandria:

Not for the

prima facie

case for conspiracy, which started with Salandria and the clothing evidence.

Immediately after the autopsy, right before the cover-up enveloped them

completely, the autopsists huddled together with the 2 FBI guys and came

to the "general feeling" that JFK was struck with blood/water soluble rounds.

I don't see what this has to do with the topic. I know you think it does. But at any rate,

there are much more reasonable explanations. See Gerald McKnight's chapter on the autopsy.

Your claim above misrepresents, but I don't really want to get into it with you.

Cliff, on another thread you wrote:

I am proposing that the autopsists got it right the night of the autopsy.

What is so "improbable" about 3 military doctors drawing a preliminary

conclusion which turned out to be correct?

Simplest explanation, actually.

Your guy, Gaeton Fonzi (whom I've met and respect) wrote about the autopsy in The Last Investigation.

In the chapter entitled Haunting Questions, Fonzi writes:

"Perhaps Humes' diagram (of JFK's wounds) is inconsistent with his original notes. But it was

a question that was never answered -- it couldn't be, Humes burned his original notes...."

You refer to the contemporaneous notes of the Parkland doctors as proper evidence, yet ignore the fact

that Humes burned his without any authority to do so.

By almost all accounts those men were not qualified to (and did not) perform a proper autopsy.

http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkm...g_1a.htm#_edn39

You call some of Horne's work speculative, which he admits it is. In my opinion so are many of your conclusions, which you

continue to assert as if they were established facts.

Cliff, you cite Rosemary Willis as the most important witness in the case. You claim that if you get ONE expert in this case

it would be Tom Wilson. And that because Werbell developed a weapon, he was a "perp." These are the same type of

speculations that you criticize others for.

None of these issues are simple, really. Except that there was a conspiracy and as John Simkin concluded,

"....we will never discover the truth about the people behind the assassination of JFK."

[Cliff Varnell]

Michael,

Your critique is most welcome, as always. My responses in burgandy.

Cliff, I'm disappointed that you think that even approximates what I meant by the truth. I don't think that's what John Simkin meant either.

Fair enough. In that case the truth is known, imo. It was known in large part the night of the assassination.

Cliff, again I think you miss the context of "truth." This is John Simkin's statement that formed the title of this thread and to which I initially responded.

I have come to the conclusion that we will never discover the truth about the people behind the assassination of JFK.

This goes back to my original question as to context: I wrote:

(quote on)

Too late to obtain the truth? If by "truth" you mean something that is reported in

the NY Times and included in history books as settled fact -- agreed, it's not going

to happen.

(quote off)

You said you were disappointed that I would define "truth" in such a manner,

so at this point I have no idea what you mean by "truth."

My observations are in this context:

(quote on)

As a self-admitted hobbyist I find the assassination becomes more and more clear

the longer I study it.

But that's just me.

(quote off)

Although we cannot claim to know the truth behind the assassination as

"settled fact," I'll argue that we can certainly reach a reasonable, supportable

conclusion as to the people behind JFK's killing, albeit one that falls short of

"historical truth."

In my reading of the case such a reasonable conclusion is at hand. I've clearly

underlined the subjective nature of this conclusion -- "But that's just me."

Surely, the truth to which you are referring ("known in large part the night of the assassination") is a different issue.

Since you're disappointed in my definition of "truth" as "settled fact" (objective),

and you're not buying what I'm selling here as "that which is clear to me" (subjective),

I don't have a handle on what constitutes "truth" in your book, Michael.

And besides, if what you claim is true, the prima facie case for conspiracy preceded Salandria:

By "case" I mean the prima facie evidence of conspiracy presented to the public as such.

Vince was the man. Inspired by Salandria, Gaeton Fonzi spoke truth to power when he humiliated

Specter over the clothing evidence in 1966. I'd peg that moment in history as when the SBT

was officially debunked:

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/f...th_Specter.html

Not for the

prima facie

case for conspiracy, which started with Salandria and the clothing evidence.

Immediately after the autopsy, right before the cover-up enveloped them

completely, the autopsists huddled together with the 2 FBI guys and came

to the "general feeling" that JFK was struck with blood/water soluble rounds.

I don't see what this has to do with the topic. I know you think it does.

Well, of course I do. I'm sharing what has "become more and more clear to me,"

that which has allowed me to reach a "reasonable conclusion" about the perps behind

the JFK assassination.

I'm sticking to the known credible historical record as best I can.

But at any rate, there are much more reasonable explanations.

For what? The fact that JFK suffered a shallow wound in the back, the round did not exit and no

bullet was recovered? The fact that JFK was struck in the throat with a round that did not exit and

was not recovered?

Two wounds. No exits. No bullets. What McKnight calls "the perplexing mystery."

I can buy pre-autopsy surgery to the head. I cannot buy pre-autopsy removal of a round which entered

the throat and left an air-pocket overlaying C7 and T1. Such an operation -- in addition to the known

surgery to the head -- would have required much more time that the autopsy time-line allows.

And if JFK were struck in the throat with a round as small as a .22, surely he would have suffered a lot

more damage than a nicked trachea, a bruised lung-tip, a hair-line fracture of the right T1 transverse

process, and an air-pocket.

All soft tissue damage, no? A .22 would surely have exited, no?

Then we have the Zapruder film, which shows JFK seizing up paralyzed in roughly two seconds.

Perhaps it's a coincidence that the autopsists suspected blood soluble rounds and the CIA had indeed

tested such rounds, which paralyzed the target in two seconds?

Perhaps we can chalk it up to coincidence that Tom Wilson describes in the Altgens 6 photo a device

on the second floor of the Dal-Tex which, according to Steve Kober's research, resembles a patented device

that fires blood soluble rounds?

I'm not such a firm believer in coincidence, and I find it far far more likely that the prosectors got it right the

night of the autopsy.

See Gerald McKnight's chapter on the autopsy.

McKnight offers no solutions to the "perplexing mystery." In fact, he pooh poohs one of the common

explanations for the back wound -- that the bullet fell out. Couldn't happen, according to McKnight.

Your claim above misrepresents, but I don't really want to get into it with you.

Why not? Tell me, what am I misrepresenting?

Cliff, on another thread you wrote:

I am proposing that the autopsists got it right the night of the autopsy.

What is so "improbable" about 3 military doctors drawing a preliminary

conclusion which turned out to be correct?

Simplest explanation, actually.

Your guy, Gaeton Fonzi (whom I've met and respect) wrote about the autopsy in The Last Investigation.

In the chapter entitled Haunting Questions, Fonzi writes:

"Perhaps Humes' diagram (of JFK's wounds) is inconsistent with his original notes. But it was

a question that was never answered -- it couldn't be, Humes burned his original notes...."

You refer to the contemporaneous notes of the Parkland doctors as proper evidence, yet ignore the fact

that Humes burned his without any authority to do so.

I make a distinction between what Humes/Boswell/Finck said and did on 11/22/63 and what they said and did after.

By almost all accounts those men were not qualified to (and did not) perform a proper autopsy.

Not being qualified to perform a proper autopsy doesn't make any one a bad doctor. Humes had

the presence of mind to note pre-autopsy surgery to the head; afterward they came to a

preliminary conclusion subsequently supported by the neck x-ray, the Zapruder film, and the

historical facts surrounding CIA testing of blood soluble rounds.

They did the best they could with the limits placed upon them. Then they were dragooned into

the cover-up. But let's give them credit for properly filling out the autopsy face sheet diagram,

observing the pre-autopsy surgery to the head, and reaching a well-supported preliminary

"general feeling."

All of that occurred on 11/22/63. Everything they did after served the official cover-up.

http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkm...g_1a.htm#_edn39

You call some of Horne's work speculative, which he admits it is.

I'm glad to hear that he does. The other day James Fetzer stated as fact that Humes performed the

pre-autopsy surgery. I challenged him on that point, and I don't believe he responded.

In my opinion so are many of your conclusions, which you continue to assert as if they were established facts.

To the contrary, from the beginning here I made a sharp distinction between "settled facts" and that which

"seems clear to me."

I posit no speculation as fact, sir. And if you ever catch me doing so in any post, feel free to jump in and

set me straight.

Cliff, you cite Rosemary Willis as the most important witness in the case.

Arguably, yes. Crucial witness, as is her father and sister.

You claim that if you get ONE expert in this case it would be Tom Wilson.

You bet. Expands the scope of the Dealey Plaza photo evidence. I prefer that to the jihad conducted by

many experts against the Dealey Plaza photo evidence.

And that because Werbell developed a weapon, he was a "perp."

There's a bit more to that now, ain't there?

From Noel Twyman's Bloody Treason, an interview with Gerry Hemming, pg 665:

Hemming: ...Silencers were used extensively. These were sionic silencers purchased through Mitch WerBell.

ibid., pg 701:

Hemming told me several times, "If you want to get to the bottom of the JFK assassination, look at WerBell."

These are the same type of speculations that you criticize others for.

Now you've lost me. Citing Richard Helms as a perp is much more out and out speculation

than WerBell. And I don't see how my touting Rosemary Willis as a witness and Tom Wilson

as an expert is the equivalent of stating opinions as fact.

None of these issues are simple, really.

It couldn't be more straight-forward, to my eye. Properly prepared medical evidence trumps

improperly prepared medical evidence. Once that fact is grasped, the case falls

neatly into place...But that's just me.

Except that there was a conspiracy and as John Simkin concluded,

"....we will never discover the truth about the people behind the assassination of JFK."

As settled historical fact, I'm afraid I must agree.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Cliff Varnell

[John Simkin]

The publication of Christopher Andrew's The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (2009) and Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service (2010) has provided more information on the Zinoviev Letter. Both these official histories show that the unreleased documents that the letter was a conspiracy that involved both the intelligence services, Special Branch, the Conservative Party and the media. What is more, the forged letter helped to remove a democratically elected government from power.

The conspiracy involved Sir Basil Thomson (head of Special Branch), Vernon Kell (head of MI5), Admiral William Reginald Hall (the former head of Naval Intelligence Division of the Royal Navy), Major George Joseph Ball (head of B Branch, MI5 and later head of Conservative Central Office), Desmond Morton (head of MI6's Section V, dealing with with counter-Bolshevism), Stewart Menzies (future head of MI6), Sidney Reilly (MI6 agent), Arthur Maundy Gregory (MI6 agent), George Makgill (the head of the Industrial Intelligence Bureau - IIB) and Jim Finney (agent of IIB).

As Gill Bennett, the author of Churchill's Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (2009), has pointed out, members of the establishment were appalled by the idea of a Prime Minister who was a socialist: "It was not just the intelligence community, but more precisely the community of an elite - senior officials in government departments, men in "the City", men in politics, men who controlled the Press - which was narrow, interconnected (sometimes intermarried) and mutually supportive. Many of these men... had been to the same schools and universities, and belonged to the same clubs. Feeling themselves part of a special and closed community, they exchanged confidences secure in the knowledge, as they thought, that they were protected by that community from indiscretion."

I suspect that in 1963 the FBI, CIA and the leaders of right-wing political groups held similar views about JFK as the British establishment felt towards Ramsay MacDonald in 1924.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUzinoviev.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SShallW.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSthomson.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSgregory.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSreilly.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSkell.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPYmorton.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSmakgill.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSfindley.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgrayson.htm

[Guest Tom Scully]

http://www.thenation.com/article/155381/upton-sinclairs-epic-campaign

..Of all the left-wing mass movements that year, Upton Sinclair's End Poverty in California (EPIC) crusade proved most influential, and not just in helping to push the New Deal to the left. The Sinclair threat—after he easily won the Democratic gubernatorial primary—so profoundly alarmed conservatives that it sparked the creation of the modern political campaign, with its reliance on hired guns, advertising and media tricks, national fundraising, attack ads on the screen and more....

...Sinclair swept the Democratic primary. Dozens of EPIC candidates also won races for the party's nod for the State Senate and Assembly, including Augustus Hawkins and Jerry Voorhis, both future Congressmen. "It is a spontaneous movement which has spread all over the state by the unpaid labor of tens of thousands of devoted workers," Sinclair noted. "They were called amateurs but they have put all the professional politicians on the shelf." All that stood between EPIC and the governor's mansion was a hapless GOP hack named Frank "Old Baldy" Merriam, who had become governor after the death of "Sunny Jim" Rolph.

Where did FDR stand? A few days after winning the primary, Sinclair took a train east to meet with the president at Hyde Park, under the glare of national press coverage. The White House was torn. Sinclair was a true radical and a loose cannon. Roosevelt and his political director, Jim Farley, feared that the president, already accused by the right of being a socialist—led by Father Coughlin, the Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh of his day—could not afford this taint. Those tilting to the left, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, were far more enthusiastic about EPIC. And then there was the rather significant matter of Sinclair being the party's nominee in a year when controlling a major statehouse was vitally important. FDR believed the greatest challenge for the head of a democracy was not to fend off reactionaries but to reconcile and unite progressives.

During the Hyde Park meeting FDR suggested that "experiments" within the overall New Deal framework could be valuable. Sinclair was elated, but the president held off any public endorsement....

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Kennedy%2C+even+with+no+war+providing+an+excuse+for+a+coalition%2C+awarded+his+chief+Cabinet+posts+to+Republicans+from+the+camp+of+big+wealth.+...%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aunofficial&tbs=bks:1&q=%22Kennedy%2C+even+with+no+war+providing+an+excuse%22+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=%22Kennedy%2C+even+with+no+war+providing+an+excuse%22+&psj=1&fp=35a368afbc2e5567

The rich and the super-rich: a study in the power of money today

Ferdinand Lundberg - 1969 - 1009 pages

Kennedy, even with no war providing an excuse for a coalition, awarded his chief Cabinet posts to Republicans from the camp of big wealth. Douglas Dillon, Republican and very wealthy heir of the founder of Dillon Read and Company, .

John, I do not accept that the backlash against JFK or Obama is primarily motivated by political ideology, as it is in your example of the unseating of an elected prime minister by the right wing elite of society.

I see the destruction of Upton Sinclair to be an example along the lines of what you describe taking place in the UK.

I believe FDR, JFK, and Obama can be accurately described as being positioned to the right of, but in the vicinity of the political center, at least concerning domestic policies. I believe that it did not matter much to the enemies of JFK or Obama, what actions they took while in office. In the case of JFK, his evolving attitudes towards foreign policy may have sped up the process leading to his demise, but I think the negative reaction to both him and to Obama is visceral, steeped in religious, cultural, and race related divisions.

I do not believe JFK then, or Obama today, are under attack because of their politics. JFK and Obama have records of being extremely accomodating to the interests of the opposing political party, but got absolutely nothing in return for their conciliatory tone, because it isn't about political differences, it is about negative reaction to their family backgrounds and religious affiliations aggravated by both being the first of their backgrounds to break through the barriers that had always before, limited people of their non "wasp male" backgrounds.

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1988/6/1988_6_34.shtml

...In September 1933 Upton Beall Sinclair, the author of The Jungle and more than forty other books, decided to run for governor of California. The amiable, fifty-four-year-old Pasadena resident had run for governor twice previously, both times on the Socialist party line, where he hadn’t won more than sixty thousand votes. This time, however, he was going to run as a Democrat.

After living in California for nineteen years, Sinclair had come to believe that the state was “governed by a small group of rich men whose sole purpose in life was to become richer.” The result of their rule was “hundreds of thousands driven from their homes” and “old people dying of slow starvation.” Most of the land in California, he believed, had been “turned over to money-lenders and banks.” One in four residents of Los Angeles was on relief, receiving an average of four and a half dollars a month, and Sinclair was not confident that President Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration was going to remedy that. After registering as a Democrat, Sinclair began his pursuit of the governorship, intending to win this time....

Peter,

The man who wrote the following, the son of Gen. Joseph Carroll, founding director of the DIA, sums up what you, Don, and I have been trying to get across in our recent posts:

....Sinclair Lewis, for his part, showed how the simultaneously banalizing methods of capitalist enterprise (false advertising, consumerism, pieties of affluence, amoral bureaucracy) are exactly what that enterprise created to keep from being criticized......

- James Carroll

....and I wish I could share your hope and Bill Kelly's optimism, but I am held back by knowing what Upton Sinclair published years before global depression, a "business coup" attempt in the US, several wars that featured conscription to raise the required numbers of US troops, a few assassinations, and the scrapping of habeas corpus, fourth amendment protections, the official approval of torture, secret rendition, secret prisons, and the outsourcing of so many of our jobs:

Upton Sinclair - Wikiquote

The Brass Check (1919)

* Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.

* The methods by which the "Empire of Business" maintains its control over journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry.

Despite Sinclair's 1919 description, and the catalysts for change that followed, our grandfathers and fathers opted to "stay the course", and to support the efforts of the elite to keep change to an absolute minimum. We've accepted their sponsorship of their puppet Obama, offered to us in response to our demands for change, but without the redistribution and reform of the entrenched concentration of power and wealth we hoped would be part of Obama's advertised agenda of change.

The opportunity you were looking for needed to happen during the pre-presidential primary period, and as we saw, it is a process so scripted tightly choreographed that only the CFR approved candidates are allowed to advance. You only have to look at our own generation.....Joan Baez is till Joan Baez, but the Woodstock, "summer of love" was 40 years ago, aside from Joan, how many of our contemporaries have any spirit of resistance, or even objection, left in them? Go along to get along has long since stamped out the spirit exhibited in the student strikes and protests in the spring of 1970. The dean is not going to occupy his own office, and tuition costs are too steep today to justify skipping class to push for political change. Places on the web like DailyKos organized to elect democratic party candidates...they succeeded......the oligarchy remains in place....now what?

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2008/feb/27/cover/

The Rise and Fall of the Copley Press

By Matt Potter | Published Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008

....When author Upton Sinclair ran for governor in the 1934 Democratic primary on a progressive platform he labeled “End Poverty in California,” he took San Diego County by 3000 votes. After the Copley papers repeatedly savaged him during the general election, he lost the county by 10,000 votes. It was just one of many moves Copley made to keep the lid on the city’s radicals and reformers during hard times....

http://web.archive.org/web/20080129014051/http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/92/5/sinclair.asp

...RIGHT BACK WHERE WE STARTED FROM

by Curt Gentry

Gentry is a former journalist and the author of thirteen books, including The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California and J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets.

Upton Sinclair's surprise victory in the California Democratic primary of 1934 frightened the California business establishment -- and the California press lords -- as did nothing before or after. A longtime socialist, Sinclair was the author of dozens of muckraking books, the best known being The Jungle, an expose of the meat-packing industry. But it was one of his numerous pamphlets, I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty, that thrust him into the political spotlight. In the midst of the Depression, his EPIC (End Poverty in California) plan drew a huge grass-roots following. Sinclair advocated having idle factories turned into cooperatives and manned by the unemployed; public ownership of utilities; special taxes on large land holdings; and -- the clincher that brought Standard Oil of California, banks, insurance companies, realtors, and the major movie studios into the fray -- a state income tax on corporations.

The campaign that followed has been described by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., as "the first all-out public relations blitzkrieg in American politics." Realizing that too much depended on the outcome of the election to entrust it to the state's feeble Republican party, business and industry leaders banded together and hired outside help....

....But even more important was the role of the press.

California's most powerful publisher, in terms of circulation, was William Randolph Hearst. Even if they had been able to ignore their philosophical differences, there was no question of Hearst supporting Sinclair, not after the candidate stated that one of the reasons he was running for governor was because he was sick of watching "our richest newspaper publisher keeping his movie mistress in a private city of palaces and cathedrals, furnished with shiploads of junk imported from Europe, and surrounded by vast acres reserved for the use of zebras and giraffes." Yet the Hearst papers were relatively fair to Sinclair, reserving most of their vitriol for the editorial pages.

(One notable exception was an unattributed bums/boxcar photo that appeared in the Los Angeles Examiner. Sharp-eyed movie fans recognized it as a scene from the movie Wild Boys of the Road. The still print had been provided by the MGM publicity department.)

"Fairness" hardly characterized the efforts of Hearst's leading competitors. Kyle Palmer, the political editor of the Los Angeles Times, raised funds and wrote speeches for Governor Merriam while directing the paper's coverage of the campaign. Chester Rowell, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, drafted Merriam's platform, while Earl "Squire" Behrens, the paper's political editor for four decades, would later admit that he had personally developed and "used as straight news items, anti-Sinclair statements from leading Democrats."

The Los Angeles Times didn't keep its political bias a secret. Every day the paper carried, on its front page, a box of "Sinclairisms." Sinclair on the sanctity of marriage: "I have had such a belief . . . I have it no longer." On religion: "a mighty fortress of graft." On bankers: "legalized counterfeiters." On the American Legion: "riot department of the plutocracy" and conductors of "drunken orgies." Nearly all of the quotes were out of context; some of the most inflammatory were actually dialogue from characters in Sinclair novels. As the candidate himself told a journalist, if he lost it wouldn't mean that socialism had failed, only that he had written too many books.

Sinclair lacked the support of a single daily newspaper. Nor did he obtain much help from the many small but influential weeklies, some 700 in all, since Clem Whitaker, himself a former journalist, had established a "cozy relationship" with their publishers. According to Mitchell: "Besides his Campaigns, Inc. operation, Clem ran an advertising company in Sacramento and he had discovered that one operation benefited the other: it was amazing how much free coverage for his candidate he could secure simply by placing a few dollars' worth of advertising in each of the weeklies. . . . In a depression every few dollars mattered." Lest there be any doubt of his purpose, he insisted on paying for the ads in advance.

Late in the campaign, The New York Times sent Turner Catledge out to report on the strange goings-on in California. Scanning the Los Angeles Times, he saw stories on Governor Merriam's every appearance, but no mention of EPIC rallies or speaking engagements by candidate Sinclair. At dinner that night he queried the paper's political editor, Kyle Palmer. "Turner, forget it," Palmer replied. "We don't go in for that kind of crap that you have back in New York -- of being obliged to print both sides. We're going to beat this son-of-a-bitch Sinclair any way we can. We're going to kill him."

Beat him they did, though only by 200,000 votes, Merriam receiving 1.1 million, Sinclair 900,000. But kill him they didn't, although the EPIC movement itself, divided by factionalism and ironically even some Red-baiting, was assimilated into the newly resurgent Democratic party. Earlier, Sinclair had told one EPIC crowd that if they elected Merriam they would still have poverty and "I'll again be a writer. I won't need to think about what Pasadena thinks of me. I can go back to that blessed state of not being recognized on the streets." His first effort, of course, was a pamphlet entitled I, Candidate for Governor of California, and How I Got Licked. Returning to fiction, he wrote the highly popular Lanny Budd novels, one of which won him a 1943 Pulitzer Prize; remarried at eighty-three; and died, in 1968, an ninety. No one has ever been able to determine exactly how many books and pamphlets he published.

It would be an exaggeration to say that the campaign of 1934 was the last hurrah for the California press lords, the beginning of the end of their dominance of the electoral process. (Kyle Palmer, Earl "Squire" Behrens, and their successors would play kingmakers for another two decades, giving us, among others, Richard Milhous Nixon.) But the seeds were planted -- professional full-service campaign management, attack ads, the creative use of film, radio, and direct mail -- that would, as author Mitchell notes, forever change the way candidates ran for office.....

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/sinclair.html

THE MOVIES AND POLITICAL PROPAGANDA

from The Movies On Trial

Upton Sinclair

........That I know what I am talking about was proved when I happened to write on a subject that did not involve the profit system. Several concerns were bidding for "The Wet Parade" before the book was out. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer paid twenty thousand dollars for it, and they spent half a million and made an excellent picture, following my story closely.

Now I loomed on the horizon, no longer a mere writer, but proposing to apply my rejected scenarios! While I was in New York some reporter asked: "What are you going to do with all the unemployed motion picture actors?" I answered: "Why should not the State of California rent one of the idle studios and let the unemployed actors make a few pictures of their own?" That word was flashed to Hollywood, and the war was on.

Louis B. Mayer, president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was vacationing in Europe when he got this dreadful news, and he dropped everything and came home to take charge of the campaign to "stop Sinclair." You see, he is chairman of the State Committee of the Republican party, so he had a double responsibility. I have met "Louie Bee," as he is called, now and then. I once took Bertrand Russell to lunch with him by invitation and learned that a great film magnate doesn't have time to talk with a mere philosopher, but politely appoints a substitute to see that he is properly fed and escorted round the lot.

Also Mr. Hearst was summoned from his vacation. Mr. Hearst belongs to the movie section. Hearst had been staying at Bad Nauheim. He was hobnobbing with Hanfstaengel, Nazi agent to the United States. You see, Hearst wants to know how the Reds are to be put down in America; so "Huffy," as they call him, flew with Hearst to interview Hitler.

As soon as Hearst learned of my nomination, he gave out an interview comparing me with the Pied Piper of Hamlin; and then he came back to New York and gave another interview, and from there to California, where he called me "an unbalanced and unscrupulous political speculator." His newspapers began a campaign of editorials and cartoons denouncing me as a Communist. I didn't see any denouncing me as a free-lover, and a menace to the purity and sanctity of the American home.

The first threat of the movie magnates was to move to Florida. Warner Brothers said they would go - and proceeded to start the construction of two or three new sound stages in Hollywood. Joseph Schenck of United Artists travelled to Florida to inspect locations, and the Florida legislature announced its intention to exempt motion picture studios from all taxes, and a mob of new "come-ons" rushed to buy lots.

Of course, this talk of moving was the veriest bunk. It would cost a billion dollars to move, and the British would grab the business meanwhile. Where would they get their mountains, and their eucalyptus trees, which represent the foliage of North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia? Above all, what would they do about the mosquitoes? I have lived in Florida, and I said to my audiences: "Right in the middle of a scene, one would bite the lady star on the nose and cost them fifty thousand dollars."

But that didn't keep them from building up the terror. Orders for an assessment came; and in Hollywood an assessment means that the check is written for you, and you sign it. In this case it was for one day's pay of everybody in all the studios - except the big "execs." The total amount raised was close to half a million. There was a little rebellion, but I didn't hear about it in any paper in California. I had to go to the London News-Chronicle to learn that Jean Harlow and James Cagney were among the Protestants. From the same paper I learn that Katharine Hepburn was threatened with dismissal if she supported Upton Sinclair.

I am happy to say that a few Hollywood writers showed political independence. Frank Scully got up a committee in my support, and it was joined by Dorothy Parker, Morris Ryskind, Gene Fowler, Lewis Browne and Jim Tully.

Also they started in making newsreels. Will Hays sent a representative to attend to this. They invented a character called the "Inquiring Reporter." He was supposed to be travelling around California, interviewing people on the campaign. They were supposed to be real people, but of course they were actors. On November 4, the New York Times published a two-column story from their Hollywood press correspondent, from which I quote:

FILMS AND POLITICS

HOLLYWOOD MASSES THE FULL POWER OF HER RESOURCES

To FIGHT SINCLAIR

The City of Los Angeles has turned into a huge movie set where many newsreel pictures are made every day, depicting the feelings of the people against Mr. Sinclair. Equipment from one of the major studios, as well as some of its second-rate players, may be seen at various street intersections or out in the residential neighborhood, "shooting" the melodrama and unconscious comedy of the campaign. Their product can be seen in leading motionpicture houses in practically every city of the State.

In one of the "melodramas" recently filmed and shown here in Los Angeles, an interviewer approaches a demure old lady, sitting on her front porch and rocking away in her rocking chair.

"For whom are you voting, Mother?" asks the interviewer.

"I am voting for Governor Merriam," the old lady answers in a faltering voice.

"Why, Mother?"

"Because I want to have my little home. It is all I have left in the world."

In another recent newsreel there is shown a shaggy man with bristling Russian whiskers and a menacing look in his eye.

"For whom are you voting?" asked the interviewer.

"Vy, I am foting for Seenclair."

"Why are you voting for Mr. Sinclair?"

"Vell, his system vorked vell in Russia, vy can't it vork here?"

All these releases are presented as "newsreels."

Another "newsreel" has been made of Oscar Rankin, a colored prizefighter and preacher who is quite a favorite with his race in Los Angeles county. Asked why he was voting for Governor Merriam, he answered that he liked to preach and play the piano and he wants to keep a church to preach in and a piano to play.

Merriam supporters always are depicted as the more worthwhile element of the community, as popular favorites or as substantial business men. Sinclair supporters are invariably pictured as the riff-raff. Low paid "bit" players are said to take the leading roles in most of these "newsreels," particularly where dialogue is required. People conversant with movie personnel claim to have recognized in them certain aspirants to stardom.

At another studio an official called in his scenario writers to give them a bit of advice on how to vote. "After all," he is reputed to have told his writers, "what does Sinclair know about anything? He's just a writer."

Hitherto the movies have maintained that they could not do any kind of "educational" work; their audiences demanded entertainment, and they could have nothing to do with "propaganda." But now, you see, that pretense has been cast aside. They have made propaganda, and they have won a great victory with it, and are tremendously swelled up about it. You may be sure that never again will there be an election in California in which the great "Louie Bee" will not make his power felt; and just as you saw the story of "Thunder Over California" being imported from Minnesota, so will you see the "Inquiring Reporter" arriving in Minnesota, Mississippi, Washington, or wherever big business desires to ridicule the efforts of the disinherited to help themselves at the ballot-box.

Listen to the lords of the screen world vaunting themselves: The front page of the Hollywood Reporter eleven days prior to the election.

This campaign against Upton Sinclair has been and is dynamite.

When the picture business gets aroused, it becomes AROUSED, and, boy, how they can go to it. It is the most effective piece of political humdingery that has ever been effected, and this is said in full recognition of the antics of that master-machine that used to be Tammany. Politicians in every part of this land (and they are all vitally interested in the California election are standing by in amazement as a result of the bombast that has been set off under the rocking chair of Mr. Sinclair....

Edited January 26, 2011 by Tom Scully

[Tony Frank]

John,

When massive KGB infiltration of the CIA was exposed in 1984 (but never made public), the United States government determined with absolute certainty that the KGB officers inside the CIA were behind JFK's assassination.

[Tony Frank]

Tom,

Obama is as far to the left as they come. I have never seen anyone as far to the left as Obama. There are many African-Americans who are qualified to be President, but Obama is not one of them. JFK was a raving conservative when compared to Obama.

[William Kelly]

John,

When massive KGB infiltration of the CIA was exposed in 1984 (but never made public), the United States government determined with absolute certainty that the KGB officers inside the CIA were behind JFK's assassination.

This is simply untrue.

The KGB infiltration of the MI6 and CIA was determined in 1963 when Kim Philby was exposed, and the idea that either Cuba, the KGB or the Mafia was behind the assassination of JFK can be demonstrated to be a false, black propaganda, disinformation campaign that continues to this day.

The US government investigators knew from the day of the assassination that Castro, the KGB nor the Mafia were behind the assassination because the NSA and the FBI had them all wired and knew what their reactions to the assassination were.

The conspiracy behind whatever you believe happened at Dealey Plaza can be traced directly to those within the US government itself, and not some benign, disgrunted CIA officers, the mob or foreigners bent on retribution, none of whom have the power to keep the records secret and to thwart justice today.

And it's okay to have a rabid, right wing lunatic for president, but left wing radicals, even though they have degrees in constitutional law. aren't qualifited to be president?

I say that qualificaiton is in the hands of the voting citizens, and will be determined by the state of the economy at the time of the next election and not on any qualifier you would impose.

Bill Kelly

Edited January 27, 2011 by William Kelly

[Guest Robert Morrow]

John,

When massive KGB infiltration of the CIA was exposed in 1984 (but never made public), the United States government determined with absolute certainty that the KGB officers inside the CIA were behind JFK's assassination.

I think that the odds of the above being true are 1 in 1 octillion. An octillion is 10 to the 27th power. This may have been the most inaccurate post I have ever read on a JFK forum. The Russians did NOT kill JFK, the American political elites did!

I suggest that folks google my "LBJ-CIA Assassination of JFK" for a much better overview of the JFK assassination. Here is how it begins:

Lyndon Johnson made a dirty deal with CIA Republicans to murder John Kennedy in the 1963 Coup dEtat. (People like Clint Murchison Sr., H.L. Hunt, Nelson Rockefeller, David Rockefeller, top Nelson Rockefeller aide Henry Kissinger, George Herbert Walker Bush and Gen. Edward Lansdale all are excellent candidates for elite sponsorship.) Lyndon Johnson and Allen Dulles may very well have been co-CEOs of the JFK assassination; with the CIA in charge of the killing of JFK, and Lyndon Johnson and (his close friend and neighbor of 19 years in Washington, DC) FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in charge of the cover up.

Clint Murchison, Sr more so than even H.L. Hunt was a key player in the JFK assassination because of his close ties to the inner core of US intelligence (Allen Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, John J. McCloy), close ties to Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, bankers Rockefellers; Murchison was even friends with key Kennedy-hater mafia godfather Carlos Marcellos of New Orleans. Not only that, Murchison, Sr. was a patient and partner of Dr. Alton Oschner, the former president of the American Cancer Society and who ran covert cancer research for the CIA. Oschner, likewise was a Kennedy-hater. John Simkin: One of Ochsner's friends described him as being like a fundamentalist preacher in the sense that the fight against communism was the only subject that he would talk about, or even allow you to talk about, in his presence.

When JFK was slaughtered, Russias Khrushchev was literally crying, fearing nuclear war. Cubas Castro worried and feared an US invasion and gave an impressive speech the next day deconstructing the CIAs deception provocation for war. Meanwhile at Clint Murchisons home, their family maid May Newman describes the scene: The mood in the Murchison family home was very joyous and happy. For a whole week after like champagne and caviar flowed, every day of the week. But I was the only one in that household at that time that felt any grief for his assassination."

The Warren Commission should have really been called the Allen Dulles Commission because he controlled it and made it the farce that it was. Dulles was probably an elite sponsor (i.e. murderer), as well as certainly Lyndon Johnson. The 3 hardcore cover up artists on the Warren Commission were the 3 Council on Foreign Relations members: Allen Dulles (president CFR 1946-50), John J. McCloy (then chairman of the CFR 1953-1970) and Gerald Ford (CFR member, later president). John J. McCloy was a Rockefeller man, former head of Chase Manhattan bank, and very deep US intelligence since the OSS days. John J. McCloys nickname was Chairman of the American Establishment, and he mixed at the highest levels of business, intelligence and he was close to the Kennedy-hating Texas business elite. Cover up artist Gerald Ford was secretly reporting to Hoover and the FBI what the Warren Commission was doing. In 1970, Newsweek called Gerald Ford the CIAs best friend in Congress. The CFR especially 40 years ago, was heavily Rockefeller influenced and it top players were deep CIA.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Robert Morrow

[John Simkin]

The point I am trying to make is that with the Zinoviev Letter, MI5 and MI6 were willing to open their files to “friendly” historians nearly 90 years after the event. At that rate the files about the JFK assassination will be released in around 2050. However, with the MI5/MI6 they were only willing to disclose they were involved in disinformation. They have been unwilling to admit to the murder the former MP, Victor Grayson, who was onto the story.

[Duke Lane]

I have come to the conclusion that we will never discover the truth about the people behind the assassination of JFK. I think in time, probably in about 2063, the US government will appoint a respected historian to examine the classified documents related to the case. They will then report that a conspiracy and a cover-up did take place but the available evidence makes it impossible to identify those responsible for these events.

I was reading Dick Russell's interview with Doug Horne in his compendium On the Trail of the JFK Assassins (I haven't started digging into Horne's stuff yet) in which Horne feels that Humes gave up part of the ghost during his ARRB testimony; that the different groups of observers as delineated originally by David Lifton did see what they said they saw; and that, opposite Lifton's theory, the official autopsists performed a "pre-autopsy autopsy" themselves to create the scenario to support a lone, deranged gunman being the sole perp.

I thought about how, back years ago, the mainstream media was raising questions and calling for new investigations before turning on their heel and constructing the trench for the WC's defense. About Bill Clinton's comment about believing there was a conspiracy and his silence on the topic after gaining office. About the Kennedy family's lack of interest in the matter. The destruction of USSS documents in apparent anticipation of their legally ordered release. Panels created to sanctify findings that differ from the original (e.g., a head wound that moves four inches). The list goes on.

And I wonder if it isn't possible that, however gruesome as it may sound, there is an official policy, a contingency plan put into effect upon the violent death of the chief executive by whatever means, that ensures not so much that justice can never be served, but that nobody can claim credit for the act.

"Mr. President, about that 'conspiracy' statement you'd made. Sir, we just cannot allow [insert extremist threat here] or anyone to be able to claim that they were able to assassinate the President of the United States. So if you please, sir, let us outline what will happen to you - to your body, sir - and what your government will do to insure the integrity of your office and the invulnerability of the United States. If it cannot be proven who killed you, sir, then fewer people will try. You will be killed by a lone nut, sir, someone we could never have identified or controlled or even seen coming, much less stopped. Evidence will be constructed to support this version of events. Some poor sap will be blamed, and either killed or spirited away. It's unfortunate but necessary ...."

Of course, were something like this to be true, it could only be carried out if couldn't be found out. It could be an on-going contingency such that, applied as it would be to each succeeding POTUS, it could not be revealed as having taken place even 100 or 200 years hence absent a radically different contingency being developed. Its records of implementation, if there were any, would remain classified and exempt, whether as "on-going national security operations" or as not being "assassination-related" (at least not to any particular POTUS's death) or destroyed "routinely" before they could be examined. Their destruction could be questioned, but never reversed.

The actual perpetrator(s) would probably become known to a selected few - there would be a real but very secret investigation if the answer was not already known - and "justice carried out" against them. It may be done quickly to make a strong point, or sufficiently in the future to appear unconnected. The immediate family would probably be aware of at least the broadest developments and results ("we know who did it, and this has been done to them?") to dampen any enthusiasm any of them may have for a "full investigation" in the future. The government would in any case survive any attempt at disclosure by family members, its "lone nut" cover story well entrenched and supported by all "rational" factions, a support voiced all the louder the closer or more forcefully an actual solution - or disputation - might come.

This is just a notional whim that, even (and especially) if true, could never be proved, merely a passing thought ... but given the odd ways that governments seem to think and act, not a complete impossibility. (If I'm ever visited in the middle of the night and become a vocal LNer - or a "strange death!" - it may have some some actual validity!)

[Pat Speer]

I have come to the conclusion that we will never discover the truth about the people behind the assassination of JFK. I think in time, probably in about 2063, the US government will appoint a respected historian to examine the classified documents related to the case. They will then report that a conspiracy and a cover-up did take place but the available evidence makes it impossible to identify those responsible for these events.

I was reading Dick Russell's interview with Doug Horne in his compendium On the Trail of the JFK Assassins (I haven't started digging into Horne's stuff yet) in which Horne feels that Humes gave up part of the ghost during his ARRB testimony; that the different groups of observers as delineated originally by David Lifton did see what they said they saw; and that, opposite Lifton's theory, the official autopsists performed a "pre-autopsy autopsy" themselves to create the scenario to support a lone, deranged gunman being the sole perp.

I thought about how, back years ago, the mainstream media was raising questions and calling for new investigations before turning on their heel and constructing the trench for the WC's defense. About Bill Clinton's comment about believing there was a conspiracy and his silence on the topic after gaining office. About the Kennedy family's lack of interest in the matter. The destruction of USSS documents in apparent anticipation of their legally ordered release. Panels created to sanctify findings that differ from the original (e.g., a head wound that moves four inches). The list goes on.

And I wonder if it isn't possible that, however gruesome as it may sound, there is an official policy, a contingency plan put into effect upon the violent death of the chief executive by whatever means, that ensures not so much that justice can never be served, but that nobody can claim credit for the act.

"Mr. President, about that 'conspiracy' statement you'd made. Sir, we just cannot allow [insert extremist threat here] or anyone to be able to claim that they were able to assassinate the President of the United States. So if you please, sir, let us outline what will happen to you - to your body, sir - and what your government will do to insure the integrity of your office and the invulnerability of the United States. If it cannot be proven who killed you, sir, then fewer people will try. You will be killed by a lone nut, sir, someone we could never have identified or controlled or even seen coming, much less stopped. Evidence will be constructed to support this version of events. Some poor sap will be blamed, and either killed or spirited away. It's unfortunate but necessary ...."

Of course, were something like this to be true, it could only be carried out if couldn't be found out. It could be an on-going contingency such that, applied as it would be to each succeeding POTUS, it could not be revealed as having taken place even 100 or 200 years hence absent a radically different contingency being developed. Its records of implementation, if there were any, would remain classified and exempt, whether as "on-going national security operations" or as not being "assassination-related" (at least not to any particular POTUS's death) or destroyed "routinely" before they could be examined. Their destruction could be questioned, but never reversed.

The actual perpetrator(s) would probably become known to a selected few - there would be a real but very secret investigation if the answer was not already known - and "justice carried out" against them. It may be done quickly to make a strong point, or sufficiently in the future to appear unconnected. The immediate family would probably be aware of at least the broadest developments and results ("we know who did it, and this has been done to them?") to dampen any enthusiasm any of them may have for a "full investigation" in the future. The government would in any case survive any attempt at disclosure by family members, its "lone nut" cover story well entrenched and supported by all "rational" factions, a support voiced all the louder the closer or more forcefully an actual solution - or disputation - might come.

This is just a notional whim that, even (and especially) if true, could never be proved, merely a passing thought ... but given the odd ways that governments seem to think and act, not a complete impossibility. (If I'm ever visited in the middle of the night and become a vocal LNer - or a "strange death!" - it may have some some actual validity!)

I've had similar thoughts, Duke. It wouldn't surprise me if, when all is said and done, it becomes clear that the mysterious deaths circa 1975 and 1976 do not track back to Trafficante and Marcello, as presumed, but the Secret Service and Ted Kennedy.

I mean, really, if the Secret Service and/or FBI were to come to Teddy and say "Now, Mr. Kennedy, this guy Rosselli's been talking, and it's clear Hoffa and Giancana ordered the assassination of BOTH your brothers. What should we do? Should we let this become public, whereby certain forces--you know who we mean, the people who are still mad about your bringing down Nixon--will try to blame their deaths on their own actions, airing all your family's dirty laundry, or should we have the CIA have one of their own take care of it?"

I think we know what he would say. "Make them go away. Clear the table so my family will feel safe when I run in 1980." And thus sign the death warrants of Hoffa, Giancana, and Rosselli... (and perhaps still others, including DeMohrenschildt and William Pawley).

Edited February 3, 2011 by Pat Speer