Why CBS Covered up the JFK Case (pt1)

[Ray Mitcham]

It is wrong only because their descriptions don't match Oswald. However, if they both saw a different person, who was 165 lbs/175 lbs[,] then they were right.

But we know for a fact that Baker wasn't describing "a different person". He was staring right at Lee Oswald in the lunchroom. Roy Truly confirms that fact.

But, since you've decided that Mr. Truly was a rotten [L-word], that paves the way for you to pretend that Baker never stopped Oswald in the lunchroom.

Nice system, Ray. It's foolproof.

Not as foolproof as your circular arguments, David. Pity they are wrong.

Baker's first day affidavit said he saw the man on the third or fourth floor. So he saw a different person.

His second story about seeing Oswald on the second floor was concocted after they decided the fix.

[James DiEugenio]

Let's please try to stick to the topic of this thread; the CBS cover up.

Davey, clearly does not intend on doing that.

He responded to not one of my fifteen points of falsehood about the CBS special as exposed by the Feinman documents. (See post 288)

Hey, I understand why. This is the con man who actually praises CBS on his web site and excerpts their stuff profusely.

And he still does even after Roger's merciless expose.

So like a card sharp, he now inserts a totally different subject onto the thread. Something I never brought up in my long essay.

Like no one knows what he is up to.

Edited May 4, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

SINCE THIS WAS MY THREAD, I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A SUGGESTION.

WHY DON'T THE MODS YANK ALL THE PARAFFIN, NAA STUFF OUT OF THIS AND START A NEW THREAD ON THAT?

THIS WAS MEANT TO CRITIQUE CBS AND HONOR ROGER FEINMAN.

THANKS.

Jim,

The title of this thread, which you started, is "Why CBS Covered up the JFK Case."

It seemed like you were finally going to tackle the most important story of the Kennedy assassination.

But your thread was, unfortunately, hijacked.

No surprise when it comes to a CBS thread.

Then you step in and attempt to get things back on track to CBS. Good for you.

Alas, it's all for nothing. You're interested only in 1975. And 1967. And 1964. What a waste of time. No wonder it's 52 years and counting.

If you really wanted to get to the bottom of this Kennedy mess, why wouldn't you return to 1963? The day of the assassination, to be exact. Just before 3:00pm CST. CBS. KRLD. Dan Rather. . .

The story of your lifetime. Of our lifetime.

But you won't do it.

Why not, Jim?

Ken

Ken:

I don't understand this.

This thread, as you admit, was about the cover up as performed by CBS for its 1964, 1967, 1975 specials. And it was also to honor the work done on exposing that cover up by the late Roger Feinman. In my opinion, that is a very large and important subject. Not just in and of itself, but the fact that, its quite clear that CBS set a precedent in the field. That is by breaking its own internal guidelines in order to aid the cover up, specifically at the request of John McCloy. Who was not a disinterested observer. That was a violation of its journalistic standards.

The almost inhuman irony of the whole episode is this: CBS kept that whole unethical relationship hidden from the public. To the point that it lied about in its own internal memoranda!

They would not admit it until confronted with their own communications in 1992, for the Policoff--Hennelly article in The Village Voice. And then Salant tried to say, well, it really wasn't a big deal. Oh really Dick, then why did you lie about it for 15 years? (That article is linked to in the present essay.)

But its even worse. Because the only guy who got hurt in the whole sordid affair was the one guy who tried to do the right thing: Roger Feinman. He lost his career. And all that went with it: a nice regular salary, health benefits, probable promotions, a pension. See, that is the personal cost of happens with this case in the upside down world of the MSM.

I don't know what the heck you are talking about when you say you want me to devote time to what happened in 1963. I mean that tells me you did not read my book Reclaiming Parkland. That volume is an in depth, categorical critique of Bugliosi's elephantine farce of a book RH. Therefore, about 75% of it deals with what happened in 1963--64, before the WR was issued. That is, how they came to their erroneous conclusions. You should read it. Because as Joe McBride wrote, its like an updated version of Accessorries after the Fact. Except I don't think Sylvia Meagher imagined how bad things really were with the Warren Commission. Yet, that is the story we have today with the declassified record.

But in my view, the media cover up of the JFK case, as perfectly exemplified by my essay based on Roger's experience, is of absolute paramount performance in the JFK case. For the simple reason, that the WC and FBI and CIA could not have done what they did if the media had done its job.

They did not. And Roger shows us why in this case.

I don' t have to tell you what the historical impact of that failure was. To use just one example: when CBS broadcast its four night propaganda piece, there were 525.000 comabst troops in Vietnam. The number would eventually rise to 540,000. When Kennedy was killed, there were no combat troops there at all.

Edited May 4, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[David Von Pein]

I apologize to Jim DiEugenio for (once again) being guilty of "Thread Derailment". (It's a difficult habit to break.)

To repeat my opinion on the CBS matter (in a nutshell)....

I think CBS produced two very good specials on the JFK case in 1964 and 1967. (I don't have a firm opinion about the 1975 CBS program. I don't have that one in my video collection, and I can't remember everything that was in that one, except for the "Head Going Forward" test by ITEK.)

And CBS News most certainly did not silence all of the Warren Commission critics during its four-part '67 special. Far from it, in fact. There is a lot of "conspiracy" talk taking place during those four hours in the 1967 program, coming from a variety of critics as well (as I pointed out in this earlier comment when responding to a person who was posting at the DPF forum):

ALBERT DOYLE SAID:

It's amazing how Von Pein tries to make a case that CBS showed the other side and everything was normal.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

CBS did show "the other side" (i.e., the "conspiracy" side). How can anyone possibly deny that they gave conspiracy a voice—and a fairly substantial voice at that—during the four-part 1967 broadcast?

For Pete sake, conspiracy theorists are popping up all over the place during those four hours — Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, Cyril Wecht, Edward Epstein, Bill Turner. They all get to spout their conspiracy views.

If that's not showing "the other side", what would be?

[End quote.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've archived much of this CBS discussion at my site. And, yes, Jim, I included every last word of your earlier post where you cited 15 reasons for why you despise the Columbia Broadcasting System....

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2016/04/dvp-vs-dieugenio-part-115.html

(I promise not to "hijack" again.)

Edited May 4, 2016 by David Von Pein

[James DiEugenio]

I did not write 15 reasons to despise CBS.

What I wrote was a list of fifteen evidentiary points which were falsified by CBS and which, for the most part, Roger's documents proved was the case.

To say that the critics had fair play during the show, and were given equal time is simply wrong. For two reasons.

First, as we saw through Roger's documents, the original plan of the show as proposed by people like Midgley and Manning and Schorr, was to have a fair and open debate between the advocates and the critics of the report. The other idea was to either have a mock trial of Oswald, or of the Warren Report. Including witnesses either discounted or ignored by the WC.

Nothing like that ever happened on the show at all. Those ideas were jettisoned by Salant going to the CNEC, and by the journey Salant sent Manning and Midgley on to California to talk to the two lawyers. On that journey the "national security interest" and "political implications" of doing such a thing were made clear. Manning's attitude was reversed and Alvarez actually was introduced into the new mix. After that it was just about over. Except for the carrots given to Mdigley and his betrothed. That was the final nail in the coffin.

Second, every consultant for both the 1967 and 1975 show was a firm WR supporter, of the most extreme type. In the case of Hill, some have argued he was directly in on the cover up. So how could the presentation have possibly been fair?

To say that because out of four hours in 1967, and two hours in 1975, the critics got maybe 30 minutes of air time, I mean that is fruity. And not just because of the imbalance in time.

But because of the orientation of the show and who had final cut. As I said, the interview shown on screen in 1967 with Garrison was a redo. Why? Because the first interview done with him was too fair and treated him too objectively. Therefore, as with many other things, that was cut. Mike Wallace was sent in. And if you watch that one and Wallace's final comments, you will see that Wallace and CBS were in cahoots with Walter Sheridan and NBC in order to smear Garrison with all that nonsense that Sheridan created for his NBC hatchet job. They even had Gurvich giving the last word on Garrison.

Therefore, there was no possibility of Garrison speaking about any of his evidentiary discoveries. As he had been given the first time around with a fellow named Joe Wershba. You know, things like 544 Camp Street on Oswald's flyers, and Ferrie and Banister.

With this kind of editing, the aim was of course to give the critics a few minutes in order to say: well see, we gave them their time and we will now discredit them. Because obviously, if you say that the WC was correct in all of its major conclusions--it was Oswald's rifle, he carried it to work, there were three shots fired etc--then what does that do to people like Wecht? Especially when you have Humes lying his head off about the location of the back wound and the Ryderg drawings. After all, Rather was sanctifying it by raising no objections.

That is why I say, CBS really set the precedent in the field. And it got worse and worse as time went on.

Edited May 4, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Brad Milch]

@James DiEugenio:

I realize there is a risk involved & me possibly becoming the victim of someone's posse or Cavalry by adding some info to your thread at this point, but there simply is no other way to get it publicized to your readers that are following you & your info supplied in your thread, particularly this rare CBS Inquiry show that was broadcast in 1975. The 1975 CBS TV Inquiry 'The American Assassins' is currently being sought in digital video clip format by several JFK folks I know that have authored JFK video channels. Apparently, it is a rare gem that has slipped through the cracks of time (I don't recall watching the broadcast back in 1975. I do remember 'All In The Family', 'The Jeffersons' & 'Sanford & Son' being the hot TV shows at the time. Elvis was still alive & the movie 'Jaws' was scaring people away from the ocean & raking in the big bucks at theatres while folks were still listening to disco music. That's 1975 in a nutshell to me). I'll post a link to the results of their combined efforts when I hear from them (if someone doesn't get there first & post a link to the actual TV broadcast). The CBS TV Inquiry's from 1964, 1967 & 1992 are all posted in various channels on YouTube & James' readers can view or download them from there & follow along in his commentary.

For those also searching for the video of that CBS 1975 broadcast, I have found downloadable transcripts of the program here:

https://archive.org/stream/nsia-CBS-TVNewsSpecialAmericanAssassins/nsia-CBS-TVNewsSpecialAmericanAssassins/CBS%20TV%20News%20AA%2002_djvu.txt

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CBS-TV%20News%20Special%20American%20Assassins/Item%2001.pdf

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CBS-TV%20News%20Special%2011-75/Item%2062.pdf

James's readers need to click on the links (I have to hold either the keyboard 'Shift' or 'Ctrl' button down while in the Education Forum to accomplish this [depending on the mood of the Internet at that moment], James' readers might not have to), right click & select 'save as". The first link can be saved as a text file or html.

This will give James's readers something to look at while awaiting for the opportunity to download the actual video of the 1975 broadcast. Probably not as exciting as watching super multi-millionaire Dan Rather's deadpan face on TV for some folks, but it's better than nothing at this point. It surprises me that DVP doesn't have this video in his spectacular online JFK video collection. Perhaps he spent all his money on Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber albums?

My friends that do a lot of posting on YouTube are telling me that posting videos on Google's GDrive is becoming more popular because one can bypass YouTube's censorship tactics. YouTube often responds to a complaint about a video by deleting it unexpectedly & terminating the uploader's account. Folks won't have that problem with G-Drive, I am told. Microsoft also has an online storage drive. I am told using it results in a flood of email spam for the person that uploads videos & links to them on that drive.

Finally, here's a site I ran across that advertises audio only of the 1975 CBS TV special for sale:

http://www.atvaudio.com/ata_search.php?keywords=CBS+REPORTS+INQUIRY%3A+THE+AMERICAN+ASSASSINS

Word of caution: not everyone that has rare stuff is willing to share it online. I've been searching for the complete final Glenn Miller Coca-Cola Spotlight Bands radio performance from late Sept 1942 for over 15 years now. A Internet radio DJ shared a few seconds of that broadcast with Miller talking to his audience with me, the others I contacted blew me off without responding. Miller disappeared over the English Channel way back in late 1944. Since I came along in the very early 1950's, that's a long time to wait to hear his final civilian band radio show performed 2 years before Glenn Miller vanished! As Michael Douglas would probably put it from one of his famous movies, 'Selfish/greed is good'. Patience & fortitude is often required when asking some people to share something in this world.

I think it's important to come to terms with the dishonesty that was perpetrated on a trusting global public following the ambush & death of President Kennedy, particularly when it comes to the discarded snakeskins CBS, Dan Rather & Walter Cronkite (among other rich TV newscasters) shed & left behind in a trail over the years. I never miss an opportunity to remind folks that were not aware of it before, that CBS, along with Hoover's FBI & Rowley's Secret Service conducted dishonest, historically inaccurate re-enactments in their crime scene analysis that was later expanded on by dishonest computer graphics animators. They made the ambush seem easy by leaving out JFK's guards & their transport car tailgating the late President during the assassination. None of that should have been left out of what was offered to the public as 'proof' LHO accomplished the assassination of JFK unaided, regardless of clearance for the fatal headshot existing at the time.

Best always,

Brad Milch

PS: If James decides to take my head off for posting this info in his thread, I do want to remind him that I am an admirer of his & only ask he not let ISIS or Hillary get their hands on my severed head (lol).

Edited May 5, 2016 by Brad Milch

[David Von Pein]

Good links, Brad.

But I'm curious to know WHY you would think Jim D. would want to take your head off for posting informative details about the 1975 CBS program? You've provided good info about a rare program that few people have seen (or even read about). And you posted the information in the proper "CBS" thread. So you can't be accused of "hijacking" the thread. So why would you think Jim would object to such valuable info being posted? He'll probably appreciate it -- as do I.

P.S. --- I had forgotten all about that link Brad provided above to "Archival Television Audio, Inc.", even though I think I once directed somebody to that exact same "American Assassins" page when someone asked me for a copy of that program years ago. That site is owned and run by Phil Gries, who recorded the only known-to-exist audio of the first two NBC-TV assassination bulletins voiced by Don Pardo (which Phil was nice enough to share with me from his raw files in 2013).

And, Brad, if you ever find the video to the 1975 CBS special, give me a shout. I'd love to have a copy of it. I'm always searching for more "JFK" stuff. (And try to dig up anything from KTVT-TV and WRR-Radio in Dallas from 11/22/63 too. I can't find a thing from those two stations.)

Edited May 5, 2016 by David Von Pein

[Brad Milch]

@David Von Pein

I'm grateful for your kind words, David. I wish your JFK channel had been operational back in my college days (many, many moons ago). I could have impressed a lot of professors with the material you so generously have provided the global public free of charge.

I must admit that this particular CBS TV report slipped right past me. If my friends come through for me (they've not failed me yet!), I will let you know how & where you can add their efforts to your magnificent online JFK video resource collection. I understand some libraries claim to have the program in either VHS video tape or DVD (or both). That's where we collectively are searching now (along with Internet resources).

As for the caution I used....several times in the past I've let a day or two pass by & re-visited this & competing JFK forums only to find some folks bashing each other & being placed on restriction (or worse). It was peaceful when I left & like WWIII when I returned (lol). The general tone within the last two pages of this thread suggested to me that the waters might have become quite choppy. I usually start tip-toeing or hide in the shadows with the lurkers when that happens. I can't be too careful; my head is valuable to me. It's the only one I was given (lol).

Best always,

Brad Milch

PS: As an avid Big Band & Swing Era enthusiast, I often find myself searching for hard to find live performances from that era & I can appreciate the hard work & blood, sweat & tears you put into your several JFK audio & video Internet collections. It's not as easy to create what you have, David, as some might believe.

I find the swing era fascinating because it tells me what was going on here on Earth when I was floating around in the Twilight Zone & before I woke up one day & discovered I was here (sometimes I feel like I left one Twilight Zone only to wake up in another Twilight Zone that is worse than the previous one I left. Political campaigns & elections often leave me in such a mood of despair when I compare what's being offered to replace what we as a people collectively just experienced as a leader & role model). I have come to realize that I missed a lot of great music, multi-gifted singers & musicians, really gorgeous women, a lot of heavy partying & the same stuff one sees on TV news today (minus the people blowing themselves & others up stuff).

It's a frustrating hobby as well, because so little audio or video survived from the countless performances that were given all over the world by any given artist of that period. Glenn Miller is particularly frustrating because Glenn was one of the few Big Band orchestra leaders that had a recording capability of his own. That meant Glenn could record audio of his performances sponsors didn't pay to have broadcast on radio. What happened to those performances after Glenn vanished shortly before WWII ended is an enduring mystery. Some collectors claim to have portions of some of them but are unwilling to share at any price. To me, Glenn's final civilian band radio performance & the one that followed it the next day (not broadcast, but recorded by Glenn Miller) are as precious as the Beatle's final global concert at Candlestick Park in California in 1966. Fortunately, a primitive audio & some video of that final Beatles concert survived. Nothing survived from Glenn Miller's last two performances that I've been able to hear completely (or get my hands on). To make matters worse, Coca-Cola sponsored Glenn's final radio show & the company doesn't even have a copy of that show. Coke writes about the show on its website but has no audio of it to present. Go figure...

Ditto for the Andrews Sisters, Gene Krupa, Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Benny Goodman, Harry James, etc. They were the rock stars of their generation, they played live in public all over the world & yet very little audio or video is available for folks alive today (or in the future) to experience all that they left this world, unless collectors break their selfish attitudes. As Prince just recently demonstrated, nothing anyone acquires in this world can be taken with them other than the spiritual track record of what they did & how they treated others while here.

In essence, we're all just passing through...

Edited May 5, 2016 by Brad Milch

[Brad Milch]

@ David Von Pein & James DiEugenio:

Now that I've had some time to look over the transcript of the 1975 CBS TV Special 'CBS Reports Inquiry: The American Assassins' that I left a link for others to obtain it also & absorbed some of it, I have gone back & looked this thread over & decided for myself that this thread is a 'keeper' for many to refer back to because the topic discussed is very much alive today in what we see on our TV sets & computer screens. The MSM is very much alive & breathing. Faces & genders have changed, salaries have increased, corporate heads have been replaced since the times these CBS TV specials were 1st broadcast. Convincing the public that LHO committed this crime solo has never been an easy task for anyone to tackle.

I see ample ammo in this thread for David's viewpoints in the transcripts, his & other reader response comments as well as Jim's throughout this thread, page 1 to here.

In many ways, I started out on this topic like David sees things now & wandered over to James' side of the fence early in life. My 5th grade teacher thought the entire story was 'fishy', my parents thought Castro & Khrushchev were directing LHO. When my dad was ordered to Viet Nam in 1965, he & his friends were convinced LBJ & the Joint Chiefs were behind the assassination.

There's been confusion & turmoil in this case since the beginning of it. At times, I wander back over to David's side. I find this normal when people search for truthful answers on a subject that distresses them.

All of it is like watching a good trial. Under our democratic system of justice, one can't have a trial where the prosecutor tells the jury at the trial's start, 'OK folks, we know this guy did it & is guilty. Let's save us all a lot of time & effort & the jury determine right now that this man is guilty so we can take him outside & hang him'. It doesn't work for the Defense to tell the jury at the beginning of a trial something like, 'You folks know this man is being railroaded. He's clean. he didn't do it. Find him Not Guilty now so he can be released & get back to his normal life'. That doesn't work either. The system requires both a prosecutor & defense. The more they hate each other & duke it out in court, the better the trial is. Ying needs Yang & vice versa. Adam needed Eve & vice versa. David needs James & vice versa. Each has a fundamental right to participate in any thread, regardless of who opened it or closed it.

When it comes to MSM, after learning about past Cold War sins such as Operation Mockingbird, how can anyone be expected to trust MSM? Who makes the more acceptable liars: Uncle Walter & Deadpan Rather or a Miss Pretty like a Megyn Kelly or Poppy Harlow? If it's all a pack of lies, why do we spend so much time watching it on TV & computer screens day after day?

At this stage, I don't believe the thread has been hijacked at all. I believe there is ample food for thought for everyone to consume. I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if the US Government had concluded from the very start of this crime that apparent, obvious or suspected fraud in the evidence in addition to ambiguous evidence with conflicting 'expert' analysis made it impossible to pin the crime solely on LHO & leave it at this: 'We aren't really sure what happened, who all may have been involved or how to find the perpetrators. We're open to modify our conclusions as new info becomes available & accepted'.

Had the public been given that option, I believe it would have been accepted at the time as reasonable. Stranger things have happened.

Brad Milch

Edited May 6, 2016 by Brad Milch

[James DiEugenio]

I have no objection to the postings at all.

In fact that is what I relied upon in my article, the official transcript of the 1975 show which I got from the Weisberg archives.

Right now, its all we have. I think.

Edited May 7, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Tom Neal]

I am relying on the very reliable neutron activation analysis done on the paraffin casts. Which showed negative for Oswald, yet positive for seven out of seven control subjects who fired a similar rifle.

Sandy,

Do you have a source for the control subjects data?

Did the cheek test as "Negative" or (I think) was it "Inconclusive?

Tom

[Ken Rheberg]

SINCE THIS WAS MY THREAD, I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A SUGGESTION.

WHY DON'T THE MODS YANK ALL THE PARAFFIN, NAA STUFF OUT OF THIS AND START A NEW THREAD ON THAT?

THIS WAS MEANT TO CRITIQUE CBS AND HONOR ROGER FEINMAN.

THANKS.

Jim,

The title of this thread, which you started, is "Why CBS Covered up the JFK Case."

It seemed like you were finally going to tackle the most important story of the Kennedy assassination.

But your thread was, unfortunately, hijacked.

No surprise when it comes to a CBS thread.

Then you step in and attempt to get things back on track to CBS. Good for you.

Alas, it's all for nothing. You're interested only in 1975. And 1967. And 1964. What a waste of time. No wonder it's 52 years and counting.

If you really wanted to get to the bottom of this Kennedy mess, why wouldn't you return to 1963? The day of the assassination, to be exact. Just before 3:00pm CST. CBS. KRLD. Dan Rather. . .

The story of your lifetime. Of our lifetime.

But you won't do it.

Why not, Jim?

Ken

Ken:

I don't understand this. . .

I don't know what the heck you are talking about when you say you want me to devote time to what happened in 1963. . .

Jim,

What's so hard to understand?

I gave you a specific point in time on the day of the assassination that dealt with CBS, KRLD and Dan Rather.

I told you it was the story of your lifetime. Of our lifetime.

That should have piqued your interest.

But it apparently went right over your head. Or, maybe, you'd just rather not go there. That's what I don't understand.

By the way. Nice reference to CBS's Joe Wershba, a name many are not familiar with, but one that pops up in that story of a lifetime that will one day finally break this case wide open.

Ken

Edited May 7, 2016 by Ken Rheberg

[Sandy Larsen]

I am relying on the very reliable neutron activation analysis done on the paraffin casts. Which showed negative for Oswald, yet positive for seven out of seven control subjects who fired a similar rifle.

Sandy,

Do you have a source for the control subjects data?

I've seen the "positive for seven out of seven control subjects" test reported in various places. I just did a search for it and found it here (see "Test 3: Controlled Neutron Activation Analysis"). The article cites the Harold Weisberg Collection as the source of the information.

Did the cheek test as "Negative" or (I think) was it "Inconclusive?

See below.

Tom

Tom,

I wrote the above back when I didn't have a good understanding of the paraffin tests and the results. When I wrote that the NAA test result for the cheek was negative, that was my own interpretation of the barium reading of the inside of the cast versus the outside of the cast. There was more barium on the side not touching Oswald's cheek than on the side that did. That being the case, I reasoned that Oswald's cheek couldn't have contributed much barium to the cast. And so the test must be negative.

Soon after that I read on Pat Speer's website that the low level of antimony found on the cheek cast indicates a negative result for the test. (Pat states on his website that the WC didn't publish the antimony levels, but that he found them at the Weisberg Archives at Hood Library.)

So Pat Speer's interpretation was the same as mine, but for different reasons. I adopted his reason because mine was based on data that didn't make sense... the large amount of barium on the outside of the cast seemed inexplicable.

Later somebody (perhaps you) suggested that the outside of the cast had a lot of barium because someone had tampered with it. That made sense to me.

The WCR concludes that the greater amount of barium found on the outside of the cheek cast "rendered it impossible to attach significance to the presence of these elements on the inside surface." Based on this, I think it is fair to say that WC found the test to be "inconclusive."

Edited May 7, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[Pat Speer]

While browsing through a library bookstore today, I came across Dan Rather's 2012 book Rather Outspoken. This book presented Rather's take on his battle with CBS over his broadcast of the (obviously true) story Bush 43 ditched out on his duties during the Vietnam War.

But it also had a short section on the Kennedy assassination.

In the book, Rather confirmed that he thought Oswald did it. But he nevertheless claimed he was open to the possibility Oswald had help. This was no surprise.

But what was surprising was the reason Rather presented for his confidence Oswald did the shooting.

On page 116, he writes:

"I've now participated in four independent investigations; all of which attempted to prove Oswald could not have been the assassin. Because there was a widely held belief that no one could get off that number of shots that accurately and that quickly at that distance, the most painstaking of these investigations involved an elaborate re-creation of the assassination. In the early 1970s, we spent more than half a million dollars of CBS's money on a re-enactment. We built a track for a Lincoln Continental and went through a precisely choreographed replay of the events of that dreadful day."

Oh my! This is a strong example of what we're up against, IMO. People like Rather have these strong feelings and strong memories regarding the assassination, in which they painstakingly tried to get at the truth but had to settle on it being Oswald. But their memories of these events are in fact so clouded by age, fear, and (possibly) frustration that they can't get the simplest of details correct...in this case that CBS' re-creation was done in 1967 and involved a target moving down a track, and not a "precisely choreographed" re-enactment involving a Lincoln Continental performed in the early 1970s.

[Michael Walton]

Oh my! This is a strong example of what we're up against, IMO. People like Rather have these strong feelings and strong memories regarding the assassination, in which they painstakingly tried to get at the truth but had to settle on it being Oswald. But their memories of these events are in fact so clouded by age, fear, and (possibly) frustration that they can't get the simplest of details correct...in this case that CBS' re-creation was done in 1967 and involved a target moving down a track, and not a "precisely choreographed" re-enactment involving a Lincoln Continental performed in the early 1970s.

I'm not trying to hijack (once again) this thread. But it is related to Dan Rather and CBS, though not related to the specials. But even as early as 11/25/63 when describing the Zapruder film on live TV, Rather's supposedly objective description of the film left much left to be desired, especially the head shot at Z313. He completely left out the "back and to the left" portion of the film. Here's a guy who's paid to report what he sees and I find it very hard to believe that his omission of that part of the film was an innocent oversight. To put it mildly, it was dishonest and deceptive.

I described this in another thread with another EF member as seen here.