Goodbye and good riddance to Chris Matthews

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

To re-phrase my question (above) into two separate questions-- possibly unanswerable without honest memoirs by the talking heads.

1)  Have the numerous Warren Commission apologists in the mainstream U.S. media since 1963 -- Dan Rather, Jim Lehrer, Chris Mathews, et.al.-- mainly been calling it as they (erroneously) see it?  (i.e., Do they sincerely believe the Lone Nut WC narrative?)

2)  If not, have they been lying because of direct pressure from their network owners and CEOs, or because of individual contracts with the CIA "Mockingbird" managers?

 

One way to answer your question is to compare each of these guys attitudes regarding JFKA conspiracy before and after they became employed by the networks.

For example, isn't it true that Bill O'Reilly was at least open to the idea of a conspiracy early in his career? I recall seeing a 1980s era video in which he appears to be investigating the JFK assassination for a local newscast. Many years later he wrote Killing Kennedy which I assume supports the official story. So it appears that he changed his mind as a result of working for Fox News.

 

[Ron Bulman]

34 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

One way to answer your question is to compare each of these guys attitudes regarding JFKA conspiracy before and after they became employed by the networks.

For example, isn't it true that Bill O'Reilly was at least open to the idea of a conspiracy early in his career? I recall seeing a 1980s era video in which he appears to be investigating the JFK assassination for a local newscast. Many years later he wrote Killing Kennedy which I assume supports the official story. So it appears that he changed his mind as a result of working for Fox News.

 

Bill OReilly once claimed he was on the front steps of the Florida estate where Oswald's mentor George De Morenschild shot himself, when it happened.  Then he disappears. 

He was prompted to go from a tip, if I remember right, from Hugh Aynesworth. 

[James DiEugenio]

Bill O'Reilly was genuinely interested in the JFK Case in his old days on Inside Edition.

He did more than one interesting report.  When he went over to Fox, he was read the riot act by Ailes.  And man did he toe the line or what?  That is what big money does to you.

As per CBS, thanks to the late Roger Feinman, we know what happened there.  The mid level guys actually wanted to do  real open ended inquiry and put the Warren Commission on trial.  Guys like Dan Schorr and Les Midgley.  Once that proposal went to the executive suite, aka Dick Salant, it was vetoed with extreme prejudice.  And everyone else fell into line as they do in a well paid bureacracy.

In 1992, while off camera in Dealey Plaza, Dan Rather told Bob Tanenbaum, "We really blew it on the Kennedy assassination."

Edited March 7, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

This is the article I wrote based upon Roger's experience at CBS.  He had done a PP for us and then I adapted it in essay form. Everyone should read it, not because of me, but because of what Roger exposed about his former employer. They fired him over it.

There is no doubt that it is the most comprehensive, detailed, trenchant examination ever of how  a large news organization coalesced around the Warren Commission. And they then forced everyone to follow that line.  They even allowed one of the commissioners, John McCloy, to mold the program, without telling the public this.  And they then lied about that fact for 25 years.

This is the reason so few people buy into the MSM today.  For good reason. They are a part of the Ruling Class.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/22/how-cbs-news-aided-the-jfk-cover-up/

Edited March 7, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Joseph McBride]

Dan Rather knows how they blew it. He was well-prepared for

the assassination, convincing CBS to have five full camera

crews in Dallas with Kennedy, including the only live hookup.

NBC and ABC each had only one crew.

[James DiEugenio]

Ty Carpenter: I always had Mathews pegged as more of a plain idiot than some sort of sell out or useful stooge.

I have to reply to this.

If you read the article, I make the argument that Matthews rode up the ladder on the back of Oliver Stone.  With his column on the film Nixon, disputing the Haldeman book Bay of Pigs reference, and then his crapola book Kennedy and Nixon. 

Many people have noted that Matthews went out of his way to rail against those who disagreed with the Warren Report numerous times on his show.  At times he did so out of nowhere, just to attack the critics and make them out to be a bunch of fruits.  

If you  read the article, you will see that he took special care to deny what i consider the main thesis of the film JFK.  Namely, that Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his death.  And that this was reversed after his assassination.  I mean, when you write a  book and a half about Kennedy, and you fail to mention NSAM 263, that puts you in the class of Bob Dallek.  Well Matthews did that.  Clearly, Matthews saw Stone's film so he had to be aware of it.  He ignored it.

IMO, this is why Stone's film was so radioactive to the Power Elite.  On two counts.  First, the MSM did not really question Johnson's nutty Vietnam escalations.  The Washington Post for example backed him on this. Their correspondent even tried to say that the Tet offensive was a failure.  It was not until the period of about 1969-71 that they began to change their tune, that is with the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

Secondly, virtually no one noted the fact that Johnson was lying his eyes out when he said he was continuing Kennedy's foreign policy.  Today, it is just about impossible to deny that Johnson reversed Kennedy's foreign policy and HE KNEW HE WAS LYING WHEN HE SAID HE WAS NOT.

In other words, Stone, Prouty and Newman were correct.  Even the Ny Times had to admit that Kennedy had a plan to withdraw when the ARRB declassified the Sec Def records from May of 1963 in 1997.

But yet, Matthews was arguing the opposite in 1999, as i note in that article, when he interviewed Ventura.  Sorry, I don't think you can do that accidentally.  The vast majority of the MSM does not want to admit that Vietnam would not have happened if Kennedy had lived.  Because they completely missed that story, and its one of the biggest ones in the second half of the 20th century.  It lead to the deaths of 4 million Vietnamese, and if you add in Cambodia--under those great foreign policy leaders Nixon and Kissinger--about 2 million more.   The equivalent of an American holocaust.

One man does make a difference.  The MSM does not want to admit that they were asleep at the switch for all of this.

Edited March 7, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Joe Bauer]

6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Ty Carpenter: I always had Mathews pegged as more of a plain idiot than some sort of sell out or useful stooge.

I have to reply to this.

If you read the article, I make the argument that Matthews rode up the ladder on the back of Oliver Stone.  With his column on the film Nixon, disputing the Haldeman book Bay of Pigs reference, and then his crapola book Kennedy and Nixon. 

Many people have noted that Matthews went out of his way to rail against those who disagreed with the Warren Report numerous times on his show.  At times he did so out of nowhere, just to attack the critics and make them out to be a bunch of fruits.  

If you  read the article, you will see that he took special care to deny what i consider the main thesis of the film JFK.  Namely, that Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his death.  And that this was reversed after his assassination.  I mean, when you write a  book and a half about Kennedy, and you fail to mention NSAM 263, that puts you in the class of Bob Dallek.  Well Matthews did that.  Clearly, Matthews saw Stone's film so he had to be aware of it.  He ignored it.

IMO, this is why Stone's film was so radioactive to the Power Elite.  On two counts.  First, the MSM did not really question Johnson's nutty Vietnam escalations.  The Washington Post for example backed him on this. Their correspondent even tried to say that the Tet offensive was a failure.  It was not until the period of about 1969-71 that they began to change their tune, that is with the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

Secondly, virtually no one noted the fact that Johnson was lying his eyes out when he said he was continuing Kennedy's foreign policy.  Today, it is just about impossible to deny that Johnson reversed Kennedy's foreign policy and HE KNEW HE WAS LYING WHEN HE SAID HE WAS NOT.

In other words, Stone, Prouty and Newman were correct.  Even the Ny Times had to admit that Kennedy had a plan to withdraw when the ARRB declassified the Sec Def records from May of 1963 in 1997.

But yet, Matthews was arguing the opposite in 1999, as i note in that article, when he interviewed Ventura.  Sorry, I don't think you can do that accidentally.  The vast majority of the MSM does not want to admit that Vietnam would not have happened if Kennedy had lived.  Because they completely missed that story, and its one of the biggest ones in the second half of the 20th century.  It lead to the deaths of 4 million Vietnamese, and if you add in Cambodia--under those great foreign policy leaders Nixon and Kissinger--about 2 million more.   The equivalent of an American holocaust.

One man does make a difference.  The MSM does not want to admit that they were asleep at the switch for all of this.

Jim, how do you arrive at the 4 million death number PLUS another 2 million?

I had always read that 2 million Vietnamese died during our action there.

Are you including all the Vietnamese who died in fighting before we got involved?

And those Pol Pot killed of his own people?   2 million there?

These numbers are important in their accuracy.

2 million is a massive number alone.

We lost what, 55,000 in Vietnam?

That's a 40 to 1 death casualty ratio.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

The studies I rely on are by a guy named Hirschman in 1995, RJ Rummel in his book on the subject of war deaths and the Obermeyer study of 2008.  

The first one is I think a bit low, the Rummel one is a tad bit high (although he had lowered his of late to under 4 million), the 2008 one of about 3.8 million is one I think can be trusted.  (There is a fourth one, by a British medical group that is even better, but I cannot find it right now.  They agree it was about 4 million.)

The previous estimates by the Pentagon and the nutty Gunther Lewy in his apologia book for Vietnam are just whitewashes.   

The two million figure is the most accepted number for what happened in Cambodia after the American invasion dislodged Sihanouk and eventually led to the rise of the Khymer Rouge.

BTW, I have to add this: way back in the seventies and into the eighties, the MSM--through the Kalb brothers--tried to make Kissinger, and to a lesser extent Nixon, into these foreign policy gurus.  To say this has been revised is like saying that America has revised its opinion about climate change.  Kissinger has turned out to be the heavyweight champion of post world war 2 genocide:

Bangladesh

East Timor

Cambodia.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[David Andrews]

18 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

Dan Rather knows how they blew it. He was well-prepared for

the assassination, convincing CBS to have five full camera

crews in Dallas with Kennedy, including the only live hookup.

NBC and ABC each had only one crew.

If indeed he really called in the crews, as he claimed to. so that CBS could cover any "trouble" -- or if the network just told him to take credit for it.  Bill Paley might have known something was coming.

Read the conflicting stories of who reported JFK dead to CBS, and where Dan Rather was when the shots were fired, in these articles:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-dan-rather-shouldnt-be-654233

https://www.keranews.org/post/old-ghosts-begin-dance-50-years-later-dan-rather-reflects-reporting-jfks-death

 

[W. Niederhut]

10 hours ago, David Andrews said:

If indeed he really called in the crews, as he claimed to. so that CBS could cover any "trouble" -- or if the network just told him to take credit for it.  Bill Paley might have known something was coming.

Read the conflicting stories of who reported JFK dead to CBS, and where Dan Rather was when the shots were fired, in these articles:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-dan-rather-shouldnt-be-654233

https://www.keranews.org/post/old-ghosts-begin-dance-50-years-later-dan-rather-reflects-reporting-jfks-death

 

Interesting, David.  Pierpoint, apparently, claimed that he and Dan Rather were behind JFK's limo in the motorcade and got out of the car after hearing the shots. 

In contrast, Dan Rather said, ""I was just beyond the overpass, just beyond Dealey Plaza, and therefore I did not hear any shots. I didn’t realize what had happened. I thought I saw the presidential motorcade whiz by, but when the rest of the motorcade didn’t follow, I knew what was wrong and then I crossed over Dealey Plaza and ran back to our local station -- KRLD was the only place where I could broadcast. I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew something had happened. My reporter’s experience kicked in. I managed to get through by phone to Parkland Hospital and that along with a number of other things led us to break a story that the president was dead long before the official announcement."

[David Andrews]

35 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Interesting, David.  Pierpoint, apparently, claimed that he and Dan Rather were behind JFK's limo in the motorcade and got out of the car after hearing the shots. 

In contrast, Dan Rather said, ""I was just beyond the overpass, just beyond Dealey Plaza, and therefore I did not hear any shots. I didn’t realize what had happened. I thought I saw the presidential motorcade whiz by, but when the rest of the motorcade didn’t follow, I knew what was wrong and then I crossed over Dealey Plaza and ran back to our local station -- KRLD was the only place where I could broadcast. I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew something had happened. My reporter’s experience kicked in. I managed to get through by phone to Parkland Hospital and that along with a number of other things led us to break a story that the president was dead long before the official announcement."

Here's Rather speaking on the "beyond the overpass" siting -- it doesn't guarantee the truth, but it's his story and he's sticking to it.

However sketchy and tool-like patches of his career have been, I give Rather credit for being the only network news personality on 9/11 to suggest controlled demolition of three buildings, and bombs placed in the understructure of WTC 1 and 2.  If you spend some hours, as I have, listening to the NBC and CNN live coverage of the WTC plane hits and building collapses, Rather's commentary sounds like genius compared to the empty-handed banalities uttered on the other networks. (CNN: "Are we certain this isn't an aircraft navigation error?" after the second plane, e. g.)  Rather's frankness that day probably contributed to the animus against him in the Bush documents debacle.

Can we find Rather and Pierpoint together in a press car in the Dallas photos?  Where's Willie?

Edited March 8, 2020 by David Andrews

[David Andrews]

Rather again on being beyond the overpass, and jogging through Dealey Plaza to get back to KRLD without knowing shots were fired.

https://danratherjournalist.org/ground/crises-and-conflicts/kennedy-assassination/compilation-kennedy-assassination-recollections-1

I'm looking for the clip where Rather claims to have called five CBS News teams to Dallas to cover any "trouble."  I've seen it but can't locate it.

Edited March 8, 2020 by David Andrews

[Paul Brancato]

How did Rather, a fledgling local reporter, get to see the Zapruder film? He said, after viewing it, that you can clearly see JFK’s head lurch forward after the head shot from behind. That was a total lie. 

[David Andrews]

 

3 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

How did Rather, a fledgling local reporter, get to see the Zapruder film?

[wiki] Rather was made chief of CBS's Southwest bureau in Dallas. In August 1963, he was appointed chief of the Southern bureau in New Orleans, responsible for coverage of news events in the South, Southwest, Mexico and Central America.

 

^{My understanding is that Rather was in charge of how KRLD covered the presidential visit, while Bob Pierpoint was the White House correspondent that CBS sent down from Washington to do the reporting, his coverage transmitted to CBS through affiliate KRLD.  So, as the desk man, Rather probably would have been picked to examine the film for CBS in the bidding war won by Life magazine.}

 

^{In Rather's role as Southern Bureau Chief, might he have had contact with David Atlee Phillips?}

Edited March 8, 2020 by David Andrews

[Anthony Thorne]

David - regarding Rather’s observations about the buildings and possible bombs on 9/11, remember his office would be targeted with anthrax a few weeks later. Rather avoided the subject after that.

http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/10/22/cbs.rather.anthrax/index.html

Anthrax also went out to the offices of Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle (no Republican senators were targeted) and from memory Daschle was in the thick of Patriot Act negotiations at the time.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Anthony Thorne