Walter Lippmann and the JFK Assassination

[John Simkin]

Does anyone know if Walter Lippmann wrote about the assassination of JFK?

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

[Michael Hogan]

Does anyone know if Walter Lippmann wrote about the assassination of JFK?

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

I don't know if this will answer your question: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/170338-1

Also, Lippmann wrote a tribute to Kennedy in Newsweek, January 21, 1963, pp. 24-29

[John Simkin]

Does anyone know if Walter Lippmann wrote about the assassination of JFK?

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

I don't know if this will answer your question: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/170338-1

Also, Lippmann wrote a tribute to Kennedy in Newsweek, January 21, 1963, pp. 24-29

Thank you for that. The reason I ask is that Lippmann was trained by Lincoln Steffens, the "godfather" of investigative journalism.

I did find this 2002 article, JFK: HOW THE MEDIA ASSASSINATED THE REAL STORY, by Robert Hennelly and Jerry Policoff:

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/...assination.html

Meanwhile, Life's sister publication, Time, did its best to swat away any and all conspiracy talk. Time countered the ground swell of conspiracy rumors in Europe with an article in its June 12, 1964, issue. Entitled "J.F.K.: The Murder and the Myths," the article blamed the speculation on "leftist" writers and publications seeking a "rightist conspiracy." Proponents of further investigation suffered fates similar to that of Thomas Buchanan, who in 1964 wrote the first book critical of the Warren Report, Who Killed Kennedy. Buchanan's thesis was groundless, Time argued, because he had allegedly been "fired by the Washington Star in 1948 after he admitted membership in the Communist party."

By late 1966, however, it was getting harder for the media to hold the line. Calls for a reexamination of the Warren report now came from former Kennedy aides Arthur Schlesinger and Richard Goodwin, The Saturday Evening Post, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore, Walter Lippmann, Cardinal Cushing, William F. Buckley, and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. It was in this climate that the New York Times initiated its first independent investigation of the assassination. By 1966 the Times seemed to be moving away from its stance of unquestioning support for the Warren report. In a November 1966 editorial, the paper acknowledged that there were "Unanswered Questions."

[Pat Speer]

Does anyone know if Walter Lippmann wrote about the assassination of JFK?

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

From patspeer.com, chapter 20:

This brings us back to a question raised in the last chapter--why so many supposedly rational people in the media embrace the work of irrational theorists.

Well, one possibility is that it feeds into their vanity. Members of the media who left the story behind to tell other stories can take satisfaction that they didn't miss out on the biggest story of the century. They can get on the ride at Disneyland and sing "It's an Oswald, after all" between refrains of Beethoven's "Hallelujah!" chorus, and not look back with discomfort. Similarly, mainstream historians, who take tremendous pride in their status as "professionals" and "recognized experts", can take comfort that the wacky amateur sleuths and wanna-be "Quincys" of the conspiracy research community, were wrong. The single-assassin theory promotes the belief that the government's experts were right, after all, and that we should, therefore, have more faith in "experts," including, by extension, professional historians. While this is dime store psychology at a discount, I have little doubt this is a factor in the widespread acceptance of the works of Posner and Bugliosi, e.g., by those who definitely should have known better.

Should this proposal sound ludicrous, and should one assume the competitive nature of the mainstream press would have led to the discovery of any hidden truths about the Kennedy assassination, should any truths be hidden, one should consider the wise words of Walter Lippman, one of the most respected journalists of the twentieth century. In 1920, in a detailed study published in the New Republic, Lippman argued that the New York Times, and by extension all the mainstream press, was biased in its coverage of the Russian Revolution. He reported that articles on the Revolution written by American journalists were "dominated by the hopes of the men who composed the news organization" and had inaccurately reported 91 times that the revolution was on the verge of collapse, while citing events that never happened, and atrocities that never took place. He summarized that "In the large, the news about Russia is a case of seeing not what was, but what men wished to see" and that, in their pushing what they wanted to see on the public, these men were guilty of a "boundless credulity, an untiring readiness to be gulled, and on many occasions a downright lack of common sense."

One can only assume then that the failure of the mainstream press to accurately report Kennedy's death was no surprise to Lippman. In fact, although Lippmann, in the days after the assassination, voiced his support for President Johnson, and later voiced his support for the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone, he later told his biographer Ronald Steel that he had never ruled out a conspiracy.

[John Simkin]

One can only assume then that the failure of the mainstream press to accurately report Kennedy's death was no surprise to Lippman. In fact, although Lippmann, in the days after the assassination, voiced his support for President Johnson, and later voiced his support for the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone, he later told his biographer Ronald Steel that he had never ruled out a conspiracy.

Thanks. I assume this was in "Walter Lippmann and the American Century" by Ronald Steel?

[Ron Ecker]

In fact, although Lippmann, in the days after the assassination, voiced his support for President Johnson, and later voiced his support for the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone, he later told his biographer Ronald Steel that he had never ruled out a conspiracy.

So basically Lippman was just as gullible as all the gullible journalists he wrote about.

I suspect that peer pressure and fear also play a role in someone as respected as Lippman supporting the Warren Commission conclusion. I felt the same way about William Safire. Ordinarily, I thought, Safire wrote with a great deal of common sense. But not when it came to suspected government crimes that one might not want to write too boldly about.

Lippman said "he had never ruled out a conspiracy"? That's pretty strong language! I'll bet a majority of lone nutters don't rule out a conspiracy. They just don't think there was one.

[David Lifton]

Does anyone know if Walter Lippmann wrote about the assassination of JFK?

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

John: From some draft notes I made (but unfortunately, without a citation), I find the following:

QUOTE

When the Warren Report was published, journalist Walter Lippman accepted its conclusions, but noted that Oswald's easy comings and goings (from the Soviet Union) raised the question of whether he had some connection with "the apparatus of espionage."

UNQUOTE

I would assume Lippman's comment was made in a column he wrote shortly after the release of the Warren Report, in late September, 1964.

Given his connections, I would assume that Lippman would have been given the "insider cover story"--that Castro was responsible for JFK's death, that LHO worked for Castro, etc. (But I cannot prove that.)

Hope this helps.

DSL

6/9/10

1 AM, PDT

Los Angeles, CA

[Pat Speer]

One can only assume then that the failure of the mainstream press to accurately report Kennedy's death was no surprise to Lippman. In fact, although Lippmann, in the days after the assassination, voiced his support for President Johnson, and later voiced his support for the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone, he later told his biographer Ronald Steel that he had never ruled out a conspiracy.

Thanks. I assume this was in "Walter Lippmann and the American Century" by Ronald Steel?

Your assumption is correct. I can get you the exact quote, if need be.