Remembering The Accessories After the Fact: 1979

[Benjamin Cole]

In late 1978, the HSCA released its findings on the JFKA, and concluded there had been a conspiracy to murder the president. 

Later, there would emerge controversies regarding the HSCA's use of audio dicta-belts from the Dallas Police Department, which had helped form the HSCA conclusion. 

But what was the early reaction of the MSM, to the Congressional report that JFK had been assassinated by a conspiracy? 

Here is one account, by a Timothy Smith, seeking a master's at Indiana University in 1998:

What is truly fascinating is how precious little attention was paid to this (HSCA) Report in the public press. The New York Times was derisive and sly in its response. "To the lay public," the Times editorialized on January 7, 1979, "the word [conspiracy] is [usually] freighted with dark connotations of malevolence perpetrated by enemies, foreign and political. But [in this instance] 'two maniacs instead of one' might be more like it."

The Washington Post was derisive and angry, suggesting what the Justice Department might now do with the bombshell that had been placed on its desk. "The finding," the Post editorialized on January 6, 1979, "appears to be based solely on scientific, acoustical evidence. All that is left is a theory to conspiracy stripped of the international or domestic intrigue on which many of the Warren Commission critics have focused...There seems little reason for the Justice Department to use its resources exploring the dead ends and pursuing the cold trails that the committee is presenting it in the Kennedy case...Leave the matter where it now rests: as one of history's most agonizing unresolved mysteries." The next day, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen added: "This is...a conspiracy between Lee Harvey Oswald and someone like him--Oswald Harvey Lee. Make up a name. It's a clone of the same man."

---30---

Yes, the Justice Department should not use its resources to pursue the assassins of JFK, even if it was done through a conspiracy, and perhaps some perpetrators are alive and free---so intoned the Washington Post in 1979. I wonder if they have a bust of Allen Dulles in the WaPo newsroom. 

You can't make this stuff up. 

Of course, the JFKA accessories after the fact---the enablers, the Mockingbirded---persist to this day, in media and government. 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Andrew Prutsok]

WaPo and NYTimes -- along with every other major media outlet -- were crawling with intelligence people then, probably still are. Carl Bernstein had just reported on it in Rolling Stone not long before this stuff came out. Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward were both Naval Intelligence. What is it they say about Naval Intelligence?

[Michael Griffith]

The HSCA simply went too far toward the truth for the MSM to accept, even though the HSCA committed many sins and could and should have gone much further. Puritanical CTs forget that the HSCA, among other things, concluded that

Ruby had substantial Mafia ties, including: "During the course of its investigation, the committee noted the existence of other past relationships between Ruby and associates of Hoffa, apart from those disclosed by a review of the Ruby phone records. Two such figures were Paul Dorfman, the Chicago underworld figure who was instrumental in Hoffa's rise to power in the labor movement, and David Yaras, the reputed organized crime executioner whose relationship to Ruby dated back to their early days in Chicago."

Ruby lied about how he entered the DPD basement.

Ruby probably had inside help getting into the basement.

Ruby lied about his motive for killing Oswald.

Seth Kantor was not mistaken about seeing Ruby at Parkland Hospital in the afternoon of 11/22/63.

Ruby's movements on the weekend of the assassination "could indicate that Ruby was pursuing Oswald's movements throughout the weekend."

Evidence suggested that Oswald had some kind of relationship with David Ferrie, Guy Banister, and Clay Shaw.

Silvia Odio's story was credible.

The WC's investigation was flawed and insufficient.

JFK's presidential protection may have been "uniquely insecure."

Acoustics and eyewitness testimony established with a high degree of probability that a shot was fired from the grassy knoll.

The six witnesses who reported seeing Oswald with Ferrie and Shaw in Clinton, Louisiana, were "credible and significant."

The "electronic surveillance transcripts of Angelo Bruno, Stefano Magaddino and other top organized crime leaders make clear" that "there were in fact various underworld conversations in which the desirability of having the President assassinated was discussed." 

 

 

 

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

In late 1978, the HSCA released its findings on the JFKA, and concluded there had been a conspiracy to murder the president. 

Later, there would emerge controversies regarding the HSCA's use of audio dicta-belts from the Dallas Police Department, which had helped form the HSCA conclusion. 

But what was the early reaction of the MSM, to the Congressional report that JFK had been assassinated by a conspiracy? 

Here is one account, by a Timothy Smith, seeking a master's at Indiana University in 1998:

What is truly fascinating is how precious little attention was paid to this (HSCA) Report in the public press. The New York Times was derisive and sly in its response. "To the lay public," the Times editorialized on January 7, 1979, "the word [conspiracy] is [usually] freighted with dark connotations of malevolence perpetrated by enemies, foreign and political. But [in this instance] 'two maniacs instead of one' might be more like it."

The Washington Post was derisive and angry, suggesting what the Justice Department might now do with the bombshell that had been placed on its desk. "The finding," the Post editorialized on January 6, 1979, "appears to be based solely on scientific, acoustical evidence. All that is left is a theory to conspiracy stripped of the international or domestic intrigue on which many of the Warren Commission critics have focused...There seems little reason for the Justice Department to use its resources exploring the dead ends and pursuing the cold trails that the committee is presenting it in the Kennedy case...Leave the matter where it now rests: as one of history's most agonizing unresolved mysteries." The next day, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen added: "This is...a conspiracy between Lee Harvey Oswald and someone like him--Oswald Harvey Lee. Make up a name. It's a clone of the same man."

---30---

Yes, the Justice Department should not use its resources to pursue the assassins of JFK, even if it was done through a conspiracy, and perhaps some perpetrators are alive and free---so intoned the Washington Post in 1979. I wonder if they have a bust of Allen Dulles in the WaPo newsroom. 

You can't make this stuff up. 

Of course, the JFKA accessories after the fact---the enablers, the Mockingbirded---persist to this day, in media and government. 

 

 

The media reported on much of the testimony, including testimony suggesting a conspiracy, during the committee's hearings. It then waited around for a report. The report was a compromise, and Blakey and Stokes' public defense of the report didn't help much. As the committee concluded there was probably more than one shooter, but failed to connect Oswald to a specific second shooter, it was purported that the committee had concluded that a second shooter--ALSO ACTING ALONE--just so happened to fire shots at the exact same time as Oswald. 

This, of course, was nonsense, and led to much confusion. Blakey, of course, publicly pushed and continued to push that Oswald fired the shots as part of a mob conspiracy. To the point that many believed the committee had concluded as much, when it did not. 

In short, the HSCA is exhibit 1A as to why government committees quite often fail. The congressmen were just too busy and too political to get to the bottom of it all. Some would never conclude there was a conspiracy in which Oswald had been a patsy, and some were overly friendly with Arlen Specter, and were reluctant to second-guess the Warren Commission. It's incredible, in retrospect, that any good came of it. 

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

The media reported on much of the testimony, including testimony suggesting a conspiracy, during the committee's hearings. It then waited around for a report. The report was a compromise, and Blakey and Stokes' public defense of the report didn't help much. As the committee concluded there was probably more than one shooter, but failed to connect Oswald to a specific second shooter, it was purported that the committee had concluded that a second shooter--ALSO ACTING ALONE--just so happened to fire shots at the exact same time as Oswald. 

This, of course, was nonsense, and led to much confusion. Blakey, of course, publicly pushed and continued to push that Oswald fired the shots as part of a mob conspiracy. To the point that many believed the committee had concluded as much, when it did not. 

In short, the HSCA is exhibit 1A as to why government committees quite often fail. The congressmen were just too busy and too political to get to the bottom of it all. Some would never conclude there was a conspiracy in which Oswald had been a patsy, and some were overly friendly with Arlen Specter, and were reluctant to second-guess the Warren Commission. It's incredible, in retrospect, that any good came of it. 

Yes, I largely agree (from memory at the time) with your post

I have written about the run-up to the HSCA, and the deposing of Richard Sprague, and the Henry Gonzalez follies, at KandK. (Believe it or not, Gonzalez took JBC's blood-stained assassination-day shirt---with the small round bullet hole in the rear---from Dallas to DC in a paper bag, and put it in his office closet, where it stayed for a couple of weeks). 

I know one should not see conspiracies under every bush (or if you do, you should try to unsee some of them).

The flummoxing of the HSCA...well, one can wonder if this was one government investigation that was brain-damaged in the crib. Then, of course, there is the whole Joannides situation....

And yes, Blakey was an honorable civil servant who had spent a career as a Mob-hunter. He could not fathom the CIA would outright lie to him. 

Late in life Blakey came to suspect Eladio Del Valle and Hermininio Diaz as LHO's accomplices....

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Pete Mellor]

17 hours ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

What is it they say about Naval Intelligence?

Once ONI always ONI.