CBS and their 1964 Cover Up

[James DiEugenio]

This is a really interesting story.  Because it shows just how invested in the cover story CBS was, even before the WR was published.

Which is really something since that concept violates every journalistic standard out there.

Florence Graves was a truly  fine journalist who was quite courageous in taking this issue on.

For me, amid all the interesting revelations in the story, the one that is key is the Bernie Birnbaum quote: CBS was working on this 1964 program months in advance!   Talk about being a lapdog.

The other thing is that Salant switched their policy on outtakes, and lied about it, and he then made up the ridiculous comparison with a reporter's notes.

As I observe in the article, this is no surprise since we know Salant was a xxxx on the JFK case from the 1967 four parter where he lied about McCloy being a consultant.

Amazing what the JFK case does to the MSM isn't it? Ties them up in knots.

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/cbs-and-their-1964-jfk-cover-up

(Again, thanks to Bart and Malcolm)

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[David Von Pein]

James DiEugenio said:

This is a really interesting story.  Because it shows just how invested in the cover story CBS was, even before the WR was published. Which is really something since that concept violates every journalistic standard out there.

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/cbs-and-their-1964-jfk-cover-up

James DiEugenio said:

There is no other way to say this. CBS was in on it from the beginning.

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?17098-CBS-and-their-1964-Cover-UP&p=125470#post125470

James DiEugenio's conspiracy-slanted opinions aside, the two CBS-TV specials (aired in September 1964 and June 1967) are, IMO, very good and very informative programs, with the second program (the 4-parter in '67) giving various conspiracy theorists ample airtime to voice their opinions (including Jim Garrison himself).

Many, many witnesses, including quite a few who belong in the "Very Rarely Heard From" category, were interviewed by CBS News for those two in-depth programs in 1964 and 1967 (which are interviews that I certainly appreciate having on film and videotape very much), including Abraham Zapruder, Dr. Malcolm Perry, Dr. James Humes, Darrell Tomlinson, Earlene Roberts, Cecil McWatters, Helen Markham, Garland Slack, Domingo Benavides, M.N. McDonald, H. Louis Nichols, James Jarman, Charles Brehm, William Whaley, James Altgens, Arnold Rowland, Bonnie Ray Williams, Roy Truly, Marrion Baker, Seymour Weitzman, Howard Brennan, O.P. Wright, Mary Moorman, S.M. Holland, Johnny Brewer, Marina Oswald, Murray Jackson, Charles Givens, Linnie Mae Randle, Marguerite Oswald, Ruth Paine, John Connally, Nellie Connally, Buell Wesley Frazier, Harold Norman, Jesse Curry, Ted Callaway, Carolyn Walther, Malcolm Price, Jean Hill, and George Senator.

The two CBS programs provide a veritable Who's Who of the JFK assassination, plus a very reasonable evaluation of the evidence associated with the events of November 22, 1963 (IMO).*

* Conspiracy theorists will quite naturally (and vehemently) disagree with my last statement above.

It's also good to know that excerpts from the 1964 and 1967 CBS-TV JFK specials, plus the 1964 David Wolper film "Four Days In November" and the 1993 PBS-TV three-hour documentary "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?", are being shown on a regular basis to college students in Wisconsin by Professor John McAdams. (And, just in case you think that Prof. McAdams shows his students only "Lone Assassin" programs, he told me recently that he shows Oliver Stone's film "JFK"---uncut---to his students as well.)
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Also See:
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Edited April 28, 2019 by David Von Pein

[Paul Jolliffe]

12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is a really interesting story.  Because it shows just how invested in the cover story CBS was, even before the WR was published.

Which is really something since that concept violates ever journalistic standard out there.

Florence Graves was a truly  fine journalist who was quite courageous in taking this issue on.

For me, amid all the interesting revelations in the story, the one that is key is the Bernie Birnbaum quote: CBS was working on this 1964 program months in advance!   Talk about being a lapdog.

The other thing is that Salant switched their policy on outtakes, and lied about it, and he then made up the ridiculous comparison with a reporter's notes.

As I observe in the article, this is no surprise since we know Salant was a xxxx on the JFK case from the 1967 four parter where he lied about McCloy being a consultant.

Amazing what the JFK case does to the MSM isn't it?

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/cbs-and-their-1964-jfk-cover-up

(Again, thanks to Bart and Malcolm)

 

Jim,

I read the article and yes, CBS deserves every ounce of criticism one can level at them. For them to pretend that they somehow "objectively" evaluated the Warren Report's conclusions without access to the evidence the Warren Commission itself would not publish for another two months, is beyond absurd.

CBS lied. No one could have evaluated the WR in such a short time.

But Jim, as you know, CBS was not the first mainstream media outlet to pave the way for the "official" narrative of the assassination: the role the Washington Post played in creating the Warren Commission itself remains unexplored (save for Donald Gibson's excellent work) and largely unknown.

It is clear from the tape of Joseph Alsop's call to LBJ himself on November 25, 1963 that the Washington Post was a very important player in bringing pressure on LBJ to create an "independent" panel of "outsiders" to review the work of the FBI. Not only did Alsop himself implore the President, he dropped the name of the Post's Managing Editor, Albert Friendly, as "going to come out tomorrow morning with a big thing about a . . . a blue ribbon commission which he thought of independently." 

(Sure he did, Joe. Albert Friendly just happened to dream up the Warren Commission "independently" and was threatening to run an editorial criticizing LBJ if he did not sign on. Right!)

Further on, Alsop then said: "if Moyers calls Friendly, you have a terrific support from the Washington Post and from the whole of the rest of the press instantly." 

(Joe Alsop, truer words about the "rest of the press" were never spoken!)

Near the end of the call, Alsop invokes Friendly's name again, and throws in "Kay" (Katherine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post) with the line "they will do you a tremendous piece and I'm sure you will have the strongest possible support . . ."

Without the Warren Commission, the cover-up would not have succeeded. 

And without pressure from the Washington Post, there would have been no Warren Commission.

https://www.maryferrell.org/audio/LbjLib/Audio_lbjlib_WCC1A_LBJ-Alsop_25-Nov-1963_1040AM.mp3

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe

[David Von Pein]

4 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

CBS lied. No one could have evaluated the WR in such a short time.

But you do realize that CBS themselves interviewed a huge number of witnesses connected with the assassination, don't you? (See my list above.)

[Denis Morissette]

It would be fantastic to see the outtakes of the 1967 interviews. I asked CBS last year if they would be publishing them. They said they’re not interested. Maybe a future documentary could ask to examine them. Then, the documentary makers have to first know of the existence of the outtakes.

[James DiEugenio]

Charles, that is correct.  And GIbson's article is really important about how the WC got created.

Between that and this, one can say the MSM created and then escorted the WC into the middle class living rooms and dining rooms to be swallowed whole.

 

To me the compelling thing about this Florence Graves article is that Lane and DeAntonio actually were allowed to see the outtakes from the 1964 special.  And the CBS reporters coached the witnesses and then cut the evidence they were coached.

As de Antonio says, CBS acted like a prosecuting attorney.  And to think this went on for months.  Way, way before the 26 volumes were published.

As I say in the article, someone from the Commission was telling them what to do, or someone leaked summaries of what their conclusions would be and how they got there.

Either way, that is just completely unethical in any journalistic sense, which is why Graves is calling them on it.  She was a real journalist.

When you combine this with the stuff Roger Feinman got from CBS before he was fired--which I link to in the article--this is just stomach churning for that profession.

Edited April 26, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

For those who missed this expose from an insider at CBS, Roger Feinman, it shows just how corrupt that network was on the JFK case.  Roger lost his job by exposing their lack of standards and practices and how that violated their own code of journalistic ethics.  Which is one way to define heroism.  

 

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/why-cbs-covered-up-the-jfk-assassination

 

Thanks to the Graves article that I quote from above, we can now trace that line of CBS corruption all the way back to 1963 and forward to 1975.

Edited April 26, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[W. Niederhut]

      William S. Paley, Frank Stanton, C.D. Jackson, Phillip Graham, et.al...  The close relationships between these mainstream U.S. media titans of the early 60s and Allen Dulles, the WWII OSS and CIA never cease to amaze.   And those guys were masters at controlling the narrative from Day One -- e.g., buying and sequestering the Zapruder film, telling Dan Rather to lie about the Zapruder film, and altering the Zapruder photo still sequence published in Life magazine, etc.

      I wonder if the ongoing CBS cover up -- and promotion of the WC-- was controlled all along from the top down by Dulles, Paley and Stanton.

[James DiEugenio]

That is a really good question.  Which we will probably never know the answer to for sure.

But If you read the article I linked to above, you will see that McCloy's daughter was Salant's secretary

Also, in a declassified document that Bill Davy has, Eddie Barker told the FBI that it was not just McCloy who consulted on the 1967 special, it was also Dulles.

[Paul Jolliffe]

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

That is a really good question.  Which we will probably never know the answer to for sure.

But If you read the article I linked to above, you will see that McCloy's daughter was Salant's secretary

Also, in a declassified document that Bill Davy has, Eddie Barker told the FBI that it was not just McCloy who consulted on the 1967 special, it was also Dulles.

When Dean Acheson's daughter Mary married William Bundy, the wedding breakfast was held at McCloy's house. 

Edited April 27, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe

[Paul Jolliffe]

11 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

      William S. Paley, Frank Stanton, C.D. Jackson, Phillip Graham, et.al...  The close relationships between these mainstream U.S. media titans of the early 60s and Allen Dulles, the WWII OSS and CIA never cease to amaze.   And those guys were masters at controlling the narrative from Day One -- e.g., buying and sequestering the Zapruder film, telling Dan Rather to lie about the Zapruder film, and altering the Zapruder photo still sequence published in Life magazine, etc.

      I wonder if the ongoing CBS cover up -- and promotion of the WC-- was controlled all along from the top down by Dulles, Paley and Stanton.

Whatever we think of Phil Graham, we ought to be careful about lumping him in with the other cover-up artists here. 

Why?

Because Phil Graham committed "suicide" in August of 1963, three months before the JFK assassination.

Although, as Graham's buddy George Smathers (Florida Senator) later noted, "Well, if you'd been married to Kay Graham, you'd have probably shot yourself too."

[James DiEugenio]

Very interesting comment which I agree with.

That subject has not been explored enough.

 

[Ron Bulman]

So the heroine of this movie, starring Jim D's favorite actor, drove her husband to commit suicide?  Odd timing, three months before the assassination.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6294822/

[W. Niederhut]

On 4/27/2019 at 8:04 AM, Paul Jolliffe said:

Whatever we think of Phil Graham, we ought to be careful about lumping him in with the other cover-up artists here. 

Why?

Because Phil Graham committed "suicide" in August of 1963, three months before the JFK assassination.

Although, as Graham's buddy George Smathers (Florida Senator) later noted, "Well, if you'd been married to Kay Graham, you'd have probably shot yourself too."

Point well taken.

I included Phillip Graham in the list because he was, certainly, a "titan" of the mainstream U.S. media-- as majority owner of the Washington Post-- who was also closely involved with the CIA's "Mockingbird" operation.

Has anything been written about possible connections between Phillip Graham's August 1963 "suicide" and the JFK assassination?  I noticed that he used a standard CIA suicide methodology-- one of their preferred alternatives to jumping out of 16th floor windows.

According to Wikipedia, (FWIW) Phillip Graham was, apparently, a friend of both Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, and had been involved in convincing JFK to put LBJ on the 1960 Democratic ticket.

[Paul Jolliffe]

30 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

 

Has anything been written about possible connections between Phillip Graham's August 1963 "suicide" and the JFK assassination?  I noticed that he used a standard CIA suicide methodology-- one of their preferred alternatives to jumping out of 16th floor windows.

 

W. Niederhut,

Yes, John Simkin in this very forum speculated that because Phillip Graham was an unstable alcoholic - prone to saying strange things - that if he stumbled onto foreknowledge of the assassination, then the plotters would want him silenced in advance. He couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

Possible, I suppose.

Graham certainly lived and breathed in the right circles to have learned something about the planned "big event". His China connections alone are a veritable Who's Who of JFK suspects.

But in the end, we don't have any evidence that he knew or suspected anything about JFK's impending fate, so I'm not sure there's much more to be said here. Unless we can find some evidence - a written record or some story he confided to someone before he died, which, of course, we don't even know ever existed in the first place.

Anyway, here's Simkin's post:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/18143-deaths-of-witnesses-before-the-assassination/