Black Op Radio Jan. 20: Joseph McBride on POLITICAL TRUTH: THE MEDIA AND THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

[Joseph McBride]

I have taped a lively show with Len Osanic about my new book,

POLITICAL TRUTH: THE MEDIA AND THE ASSASSINATION, to

air on January 20 on Black Op Radio. It is good to be back on

Len's invaluable program after having his guest several times in 2013 to discuss my

earlier book on the case, INTO THE NIGHTMARE: MY SEARCH

FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER

J. D. TIPPIT.

 

Len asks me about many aspects of the mainstream media's

falsifications of the assassination coverage over the years as well as about why and how

I came to write POLITICAL TRUTH, which is an outgrowth of my decades of

research for INTO THE NIGHTMARE. I had thought of including a chapter

on the media's lying in that book but realized it was too big a topic and

needed a whole book; instead I included a chapter in INTO THE NIGHTMARE on what I call the four-day

docudrama on TV about the assassination from Nov. 22-25, 1963, the trial and execution

by television of the patsy and an attempt to lull the public into accepting the cover story. I began

studying the case at that time and more methodically

in 1982 and started outlining the book that became POLITICAL TRUTH in the 1990s. In 2013 I

did a segment of Len's series FIFTY REASONS . . . FOR FIFTY YEARS entitled

"Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination," which can be seen on Vimeo

and is a 13-minute précis of the eventual book and a good introduction to it.

 

Rather than aiming to be an encyclopedic chronicle of the media coverage, like some earlier

books on the subject that in my view become scattered and unfocused as a result, my book POLITICAL TRUTH is analytical and a sharply pointed work of media criticism, drawing from my 

career as a professional journalist since 1960. I sold my first magazine article shortly after I served as a volunteer on

Senator John F. Kennedy's Wisconsin presidential primary campaign (he quipped

when I answered a question he asked about PROFILES IN COURAGE at one of the campaign events, "I hope I don't have

to run against you in 1964"). POLITICAL TRUTH is now available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions. 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Joseph McBride

[Roy Wieselquist]

Joe M.,

I am looking forward to that interview with Len Osanic soooooo much. Your new book too. And thanks for putting up your part in "50 Reasons...." again. I get something out of it every time. Probably ten and counting.

About six weeks ago, I got your book Into the Nightmare on Inter Library Loan. It came to North Carolina all the way from  the San Francisco Public Library, which I'm sure you have visited a time or two. When I was filling out the form at the Greensboro Library, the two guys at the Research Desk said, "You mean the movie guy?" I was impressed; it knocked me back a step. They both knew your cine work and valued it highly. Maybe that's why your book had a very short loan time compared to everything else I get there: I figure the nerds predated it so they could get a hold of it. Still, I was over a week late returning it; got special dispensation from the department to do so, until they would give me no more. Heckuva lot in there.

I filled nearly a whole notebook with notes, ideas, cross references. I am especially grateful for all the ammunition I found on one of my pet theories: that Ozzie had INFILTRATED the plot, did his best to stop it, and sacrificed his life in the process. Now this is just me: He made em pay a little, dinged John B. Connally pretty good from the WESTERN end of the building. I call it the first fragging of the Vietnam "Conflict." That theorizing may bother most JFKA researchers, who seem nowadays to think LHO was in the breakroom, all alone of everyone in the whole TSBD. Of course, the Wiz didn't shoot Kennedy, couldn't have. Our dear Jack was hit at least three times from his FRONT, once from the right front "Grassy Knoll", and twice from left front, the South Knoll.

In Into the Nightmare, I think I liked best how you evaluated ALL the previous research. I especially liked your take on good ol' Penn Jones, Jr. Maybe my favorite quotation in the whole book, when someone (could find who in me notes, but time....) asked PJ if he thought the assassins killed Kennedy to be able to get into Nam. "Hell no, the MILITARY did it so they could take OVER." And then P. D. Scott's idea of decadic military atrocities to keep the Cold War cash machine flowing. Early 50s McCarthyism, early 60s JFKA, early 70s Watergate, early 80s Iran-Contra and Star Wars, early 90s Bosnia and Iraq/Kuwait, early 2000s 9/11 and the War on Terra.

Muchos muchos gracias.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Roy Wieselquist

[Joseph McBride]

Thanks for the kind words, Roy. I am glad you also appreciate

Penn Jones, who was a mentor to me and an example I cite in

POLITICAL TRUTH of an honest, uncompromising journalist. I disagree

that Oswald fired a gun. There's no evidence to indicate he did. He

didn't own the rifle or pistol entered into evidence (etc.). His words

to his brother Robert while in jail on November 23 are worth recalling, 

"Don't believe all this so-called evidence."

[Roy Wieselquist]

Wow, Joe Mc., thanks for your very informed opinions.

Regarding Lee firing a gun that day    (but only at whom he thought was maybe the rottenest animal alive, and whom he blamed, rightfully so, for making his life so unjustly worse)       makes sense of all the "SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR" he exhibited that day, which really wasn't all that much.

Big Aside: Citing "Suspicious Behavior" is how the LNs convict OZ-man and thus assassinate his character. By patently odd behavior I mean little actions like carrying his package to work stuck up under his armpit, getting dropped off by the cab five blocks from his house,etc.

I always counter that nearly unbelievably simplistic thinking, "There was plenty of SB to go around before, during, and after the murder of Decency and Peace. The local police and about five other "law enforcement" agencies took no notes, made no tape recordings during nearly 48 hours of interrogation??? Of the guy who, if true, was making Judas, Brutus, and Cassius look maybe not so bad by comparison???????? Police car in the alley that J D Tippit was blocking, and that never makes it into the 27 volumes of the War Con???? The Harper Fragment and JFK's brain go missing???? "  Death and intimidation of myriad witnesses????      (By the way, whatever happened to Acquilla Clemmons? I find the disappearances much scarier than the outright murders.)      And on and on. In fact, there was more suspicious behavior by any one of a hundred men in positions of authority, than by that tough little cookie Oswaldskovitchnikovsky. And the SB that goes on to this day?      End of Aside.

 

Now, Ozman didn't shoot JFK and didn't have time to get to East 10th and Patton because he was at the bus stop at 1:05, at the Texas Theater around 1:10, JDT shot 1:09. No way could he have done all three in five minutes, even with a great driver delivering him at the scenes. And even If he somehow DID, he had tons of confederates at the scene. Which would remove the Lone from the Nut.

Just one explanation for LO's SB in the scenario of LO shooting John B. Con      (the slacker s$$ $$ $ $$$$h who blew him off repeatedly about his degraded discharge AND helped set up the murder of Amerikan Democracy)      and no way could have shot the other John in the car -------------

There were no curtain rods and he carries the package in that strange way cupped in right hand, and tucked "under his armpit" as Buell Frazier described it and a man can't carry a package like that any longer than 25" in that fashion, right? And BF estimated the package at around two feet when he saw it in the back seat. And you can't break down a MC RIFLE that short. But you can get 30"  what looks like under one's arm, but actually goes past and back of the armpit under the back of one's jacket. And LHO got a CARBINE in the mail. The mail order gun vendor was glad to get rid of any of that junk for more than scrap prices; they weren't too careful about what they sent out. I've broken down both the MC rifle and carbine. It's correct what the experts say about the length of a broken down MC rifle, almost three feet. But the carbine breaks down to a hair over 30".

What about the problem of how Ozzie got the rifle into the building and up to the sixth floor?

LHO left Wes at the car and walked way ahead of him    (strange in itself)     , so WBF is no longer a witness. As we all know Jack Edwin Dougherty, the straw boss/snitch for Roy Truly and Bill Shelley, stationed himself at the loading dock back entrance every morning to give the working stiffs the once-over as they came in. He saw Ozzie come in without said package. What happened to it? Easy, if you've ever worked at a warehouse. Anything thin enough, under 4", can be hidden in a stack of pallets. All you do is slide it in either: way above the line of sight, or way under the line of sight.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Roy Wieselquist

[David Andrews]

Is there a good enlarged detail of Altgens 6 that identifies the persons visible in the LBJ convertible?

In the podcast, McBride mentions that a CBS cameraman took a lost film of the assassination.  Could it be this that Dan Rather saw and reported on, and not Zapruder?

Edited January 22, 2022 by David Andrews

[Joseph McBride]

The link to my show with Len Osanic about POLITICAL TRUTH: https://blackopradio.com/archives2022.html

 

[Joseph McBride]

Robert Groden's coffee-table-sized book THE KILLING OF A PRESIDENT has a sharp, two-page spread

of the Altgens panoramic photo. You can clearly see Senator Ralph Yarborough and Lady

Bird Johnson in the back seat and the driver, Texas state trooper Hurchel Jacks. The area where

Lyndon Johnson (in the back seat) and Secret Service Agent Rufus Youngblood (in a front seat)

are sitting is a blur. I have seen enlargements that also

show that area as a blur; you can make out what

appears to be that leaning shape of Johnson. Yarborough

told me that Johnson was leaning over the gap in

the front seat and listening with Youngblood to his walkie-talkie

and that Youngblood never left the front seat, contrary

to what Johnson claimed, that the agent jumped

over the seat and shielded him with his body in the back.

 

The film Dan Rather described on CBS Radio and TV

was the Zapruder film (see Richard B. Trask's PICTURES

OF THE PAIN for transcripts), but it may have been the original, unaltered film, since

he described seeing things that aren't on the extant, altered film.

And I write in POLITICAL TRUTH, while analyzing the photographic

coverage by amateurs and professionals, "With one possible exception, the rest of the fifteen professional photographers riding in the motorcade failed to document the actual moments of gunfire. That exception was said to have been a 16mm color film, possibly showing the 'complete assassination' including a closeup on Kennedy, which was shot by an unidentified 'TV newsreel man' in the motorcade and impounded by the Secret Service, according to an ABC-TV broadcast on November 23, 1963. No such film was entered into evidence by the Secret Service."

Rather has claimed that he was waiting on the motorcade route for a film to be thrown in a bag by a CBS cameraman from the motorcade,

although Rather has given conflicting reports of where he was during the shooting, and his CBS colleague Robert

Pierpoint said Rather was actually riding in a car in the motorcade and bolted when the shots were fired. I found a document

identifying the 16mm film as having been shot by an unidentified CBS cameraman. Rather arranged

for CBS to have five full camera crews accompanying Kennedy in Dallas, including

the only live hookup (at the Trade Mart); NBC and ABC each

had only the usual single camera crew.

 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Joseph McBride

[David Andrews]

Interesting video on photos of the action in the LBJ limo.  Members are not obliged to accept every statement or conclusion:

A separate issue, apart from the LBJ action: notice at c. 2:00 - 2:09, Chaney's head turn earlier in the motorcade compared with his turn in Altgens.  Who is Chaney looking at in Altgens?  The MC cops on the other side?

At c. 0:55 in the following video, Chaney declares that Kennedy was "shot in the face by the second bullet":

 

Edited January 23, 2022 by David Andrews

[W. Niederhut]

On 1/22/2022 at 3:34 AM, Joseph McBride said:

The link to my show with Len Osanic about POLITICAL TRUTH: https://blackopradio.com/archives2022.html

 

Outstanding interview.   Erudite and informative.

The interview reference links at Osanic's site are also excellent.

One book that didn't get mentioned (explicitly) in the context of evidence implicating LBJ in the assassination conspiracy is Phillip Nelson's LBJ-- The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination.  It's a somewhat encyclopedic compendium of evidence implicating LBJ in the plot but, if I recall correctly, didn't include as much detail as Into the Nightmare about Ralph Yarborough's description of LBJ's behavior in the limo during the assassination.  Nelson did focus at length on the Altgens photo of LBJ ducking in the limo, which he interpreted as the ultimate smoking gun regarding LBJ's complicity.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Does Len do the best shows or what?  And no one is close.

Right after the McBride interview, you get two segments on the RFK case, and Newsom's utterly wrong decision to overturn the parole board.

So you get a new book on the JFK case and the media,  and then current news on the RFK case.

 

[Joseph McBride]

It is always such a pleasure to be interviewed by Len, a great expert

and an indefatigable seeker of truth. I was delighted that Jim and Lisa

followed me on that show with their incisive commentaries on Sirhan,

whom I had mentioned earlier in the show due to Newsom's shameful

action. 

[Guest]

On 1/18/2022 at 11:51 AM, Joseph McBride said:

I have taped a lively show with Len Osanic about my new book,

POLITICAL TRUTH: THE MEDIA AND THE ASSASSINATION, to

air on January 20 on Black Op Radio. It is good to be back on

Len's invaluable program after having his guest several times in 2013 to discuss my

earlier book on the case, INTO THE NIGHTMARE: MY SEARCH

FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER

J. D. TIPPIT.

 

Len asks me about many aspects of the mainstream media's

falsifications of the assassination coverage over the years as well as about why and how

I came to write POLITICAL TRUTH, which is an outgrowth of my decades of

research for INTO THE NIGHTMARE. I had thought of including a chapter

on the media's lying in that book but realized it was too big a topic and

needed a whole book; instead I included a chapter in INTO THE NIGHTMARE on what I call the four-day

docudrama on TV about the assassination from Nov. 22-25, 1963, the trial and execution

by television of the patsy and an attempt to lull the public into accepting the cover story. I began

studying the case at that time and more methodically

in 1982 and started outlining the book that became POLITICAL TRUTH in the 1990s. In 2013 I

did a segment of Len's series FIFTY REASONS . . . FOR FIFTY YEARS entitled

"Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination," which can be seen on Vimeo

and is a 13-minute précis of the eventual book and a good introduction to it.

 

Rather than aiming to be an encyclopedic chronicle of the media coverage, like some earlier

books on the subject that in my view become scattered and unfocused as a result, my book POLITICAL TRUTH is analytical and a sharply pointed work of media criticism, drawing from my 

career as a professional journalist since 1960. I sold my first magazine article shortly after I served as a volunteer on

Senator John F. Kennedy's Wisconsin presidential primary campaign (he quipped

when I answered a question he asked about PROFILES IN COURAGE at one of the campaign events, "I hope I don't have

to run against you in 1964"). POLITICAL TRUTH is now available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions. 

 

 

Great video - Thanks for sharing.