Morley on the BBC on the JFKA

[Benjamin Cole]

Some days, it never seems to get better. The establishment media is, well, the establishment, and narratives top truth. 

Here, solid JFK researcher Jefferson Morley (Substack) ponders the BBC's latest insult to the JFKA research community. 

 

	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more The Latest From JFK Facts BBC on JFK: A Case of Journalistic Malpractice Autopsy of an erroneous anti-conspiracy theory JEFFERSON MORLEY MAR 19     READ IN APP   The latest factually flawed account of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, comes, not from Donald Trump (who falsely fingered Ted Cruz’s father) or from QAnon pilgrims to Dealey Plaza (who await the second coming of JFK Jr.), but from History Extra, “the official website for BBC History Magazine.”  If that sounds like a prestigious venue, well, it is. With a worldwide network of correspondents in the shrinking industry of journalism, I find the BBC is a credible news source on many, if not most, news stories.  But on the JFK assassination story, caveat emptor, buyer beware. It’s a familiar phenomenon. In 1992 another prestigious publication, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), weighed in on JFK’s assassination. Like the BBC, JAMA vouched for the U.S. government’s official story of a “lone gunman”— and made a big mistake. The JAMA editors simply assumed their preconceived notions about Nov. 22, 1963, were true and didn’t check their facts. They dismissed the dissenting account of one of the doctors who saw Kennedy’s wounds and disputed they were caused by one gunman. They asserted Dr. Charles Crenshaw was not even in Trauma Room One of Parkland Hospital in Dallas where JFK was treated.  Oops. The Warren Commission stated that Dr. Crenshaw was in the room. The premier journal of medicine in America paid the price for its intellectual malpractice: an out-of-court settlement rumored to run to six figures.  The BBC’s boo-boos in 2024 originate in a similar prejudice. They may not cost the flagship of British broadcasting a king’s ransom but they do cast doubt on the organization’s credibility, at least when it comes to the unsolved mystery of the JFK’s murder. A Peculiar Phrase “Who was behind JFK’s assassination?” History Extra asks, promising “the real history that challenges the conspiracy.”  I was struck by that singular phrase, “the conspiracy.” What is that phrase supposed to mean, I wondered? As a historian of the U.S intelligence community, I do not find the U.S. government’s “lone gunman” explanation of JFK’s assassination to be very credible. I have plenty of company in this belief: from Lyndon Johnson to Harry Truman to Jackie Kennedy, to Marina Oswald to Bob Dylan, to CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, to solid majoritiesof Democratic, independent, and Republican voters today, there are millions of sane people who doubt official story. Does that mean that I (we) believe in “the conspiracy”? No, I do not believe in “the conspiracy,” whatever that vague phrase is supposed to imply about the JFK story. I prefer to stick to the known facts.  History Extra is not so attentive. Ignoring New Evidence The BBC historians do not mention revelations of the past year, such as the story of the CIA operations officer who read Lee Harvey Oswald’s mail for two years before the assassination (New York Times). Or the undercover officer who funded Oswald’s antagonists among anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans and lied to Congress about it (New York Times.) Or the Dallas doctors who tried to save JFK’s life stating collectively that the president had been hit by gunfire from two different directions (Paramount+). The BBC seems unaware of — and certainly uninterested in — other developments in the JFK assassination story in recent years as reported by legacy news organizations such as Politico, Washington Post, and Fox News. The JFK story is discussed on new digital platforms such as American Exception and Breaking Points and on podcasts like Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien’s “Who Killed JFK?,” which has been downloaded seven million times since last November.  Selling Old Theories Instead of reporting new JFK facts, History Extra’s podcast “Conspiracy” revived one of the oldest JFK theories by calling on author Gerald Posner. A prolific investigative reporter, Posner published his JFK bestseller “Case Closed” in 1992, briskly restating the lone gunman scenario, debunking some implausible conspiracy theories while studiously ignoring or skating over a large body of contradictory evidence. Posner was a predictable choice for the BBC, and perhaps defensible, given his investigative reporting record. I admire Posner’s books on the Vatican and Big Pharma. They are comprehensive and critical. His JFK book is neither, and it is (ahem) 32 years old. In the digital age, that’s more than ancient.  “Case Closed” was published in the first term of President Bill Clinton; before the release of millions of pages of previously unseen assassination-related files to the National Archives; before disclosures about the CIA’s surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald and the agency’s stonewalling of the House Select Committee on Assassinations; before the sworn testimony of medical personnel involved in JFK’s autopsy who said the photographic record of the autopsy had been culled. In short, “Case Closed” is badly outdated. Posner’s book has nothing to say about the wealth of new information about Kennedy’s presidency (and its violent end) that has emerged in recent years.  In 2013, Robert Dallek’s Atlantic article, “JFK vs. the Military,” illuminated the venomous hostility between the 35th president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in JFK’s last years in office. In 1999, James Bamford’s “Body of Secrets”revealed Operation Northwoods, a policty conspiracy to overthrow the government of Cuba in 1963 by staging a spectacular attack on a U.S. target and falsely blaming the crime on Cuba. In their podcast, Reiner and O’Brien say Northwoods was the template for November 22. My 2017 biography of James Angleton, "The Ghost,” documented how the CIA counterintelligence chief surveilled accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald right up until the week before JFK was killed. My presentation at the National Press Club in December 2022 explained how undercover officer George Joannides approved publication of the first JFK conspiracy theory — linking Oswald and Castro as “the presumed assassins.” David Talbot’s bestseller “Brothers” showed Robert Kennedy never believed the official story of a lone gunman and suspected rogue CIA officers and organized crime figures. Tim Naftali and Aleksandr Fursenko’s “One Hell of a Gamble,” revealed that RFK and Jackie Kennedy told the Kremlin they believed JFK had been killed by a “domestic conspiracy.” Perhaps the most elegant statement of the case against the official theory is James Douglass’ “JFK and the Unspeakable,” which delved into why November 22 persists as a central irritant in the culture of American Exceptionalism.  On such sources and interpretations, Posner’s book is entirely silent, if not ignorant. And so, by extension, are the BBC, History Extra magazine, the “Conspiracy” podcast, and its listeners. Too bad. They are victims of an elementary journalistic fail — a failure to report relevant new facts.  What Jackie Thought Instead of consulting the historical record, History Extra recycles the official story that two shots came into Kennedy’s limousine, both fired from behind. This is their account. One bullet tore through the president’s neck, followed seconds later by a catastrophic shot to his head. As he slumped toward his terrified wife, Jackie, the car accelerated from the scene. JFK was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital at 1 p.m.  What the BBC doesn’t say is that none of the people who lived through the hail of gunfire on Nov. 22, 1963, actually believed this scenario, which was first propounded by Warren Commission attorney Arlen Specter. Texas Gov. John Connally was seated in front of JFK on that fateful day. He rejected Specter’s theory, which posited that one bullet passed through JFK’s neck and then punctured Connally’s back, arm, and leg. Connally said, emphatically and repeatedly, that he and the president were hit in the back by two different bullets. He told the Washington Post in 1966, “there is my absolute knowledge that … one bullet caused the president’s first wound and that an entirely separate shot struck me. It is a certainty.” Connally’s wife, Nellie, seated next to her husband in the limousine, rejected the single bullet scenario. She told the Warren Commission the first shot hit the president and the second shot hit her husband. Jackie Kennedy, seated next to JFK, also disputed the single-bullet theory. In 2014, her biographer Barbara Leaming wrote in Vanity Fair about what the former First Lady thought of her husband’s murder.  In April 1964, Jackie read press reports that  the Warren Commission’s findings were expected to show that, contrary to much previous opinion, the first bullet had struck both the president and the governor and that the last of the three shots had gone wild. That certainly was not how Jackie remembered it [emphasis added]. She had been there. The mental pictures with which she continued to be inundated were so sharp and detailed.  What limousine driver William Greer thought is unknown to me. But Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent seated in the front passenger seat recalled, “a flurry of shells” came into the car. A “flurry” of shells implies more than two shots. And if there were more than two shots, Lee Harvey Oswald could not have fired them all.  What the Doctors Saw So none of the four people closest to the gunfire believed the single bullet theory. Of course, eyewitness testimony about gunfire is notoriously unreliable. What about the doctors at Parkland Hospital who tried to save JFK’s life a few minutes later? What did they see and say? The Dallas doctors only talked very reluctantly. Dr. Crenshaw was the first to write a book. Dr. Kemp Clark said he was warned by FBI agents not to talk about the entrance wound in the throat. The doctors who treated JFK that day became circumspect, which was appropriate in terms of medical ethics and self-preservation. But eventually they got together and talked. The 2023 Paramount+ documentary, “JFK: What the Doctors Saw,” gives their collective point of view for the first time. They didn’t buy the single bullet theory either. Posner’s response on X/Twitter was that he had interviewed two of the doctors 30 years ago, which is not exactly up-to-date information. On camera, the Dallas doctors agreed that JFK’s throat wound was not an exit wound, as the Warren Commission insisted. They saw it as an entrance wound, which led them to conclude that JFK had been attacked from the front, not just from behind. In other widely available interviews, Dr. Robert McClelland said he was “quite certain” that the president’s head wound was the result of a shot from the front, not the back.  How does the BBC treat this new evidence? By ignoring it. Warren Commission Dissenters But what about members of the Warren Commission? They were not fallible eyewitnesses. They had broader experience than the doctors and more time to reflect on the crime scene evidence. Did they believe the single bullet theory? Three of the commission’s seven members did not. Sen. John Sherman Cooper didn’t believe it. Rep. Hale Boggs didn’t believe it. Sen. Richard Russell didn’t believe it.  Most importantly, the man who appointed the Warren Commission didn’t believe it. Lyndon Johnson told an aide in 1967 that he thought JFK had been killed by his enemies and that the CIA might have been involved. LBJ told Walter Cronkite he did not believe Oswald acted alone. He repeated the notion to the Atlantic magazine. He even said on tape that he did not believe the single bullet theory. Which raises the question: Is the BBC ignorant of the new JFK facts? Or has it been misled? What the Witnesses Said Let us return to the scene of the crime.  History Extra quotes Posner: “A lot of people say there was a world-class assassin somewhere on the grassy knoll [in Dealey Plaza]. There are plenty of people … who came forward 10 and 15 years after the assassination to say ‘Oh, I saw a puff of smoke over there. I saw somebody running’ … those accounts don’t hold up, but still, they stick with a lot of people.”  Posner deftly leaves the impression with unsuspecting BBC listeners that it was only years later that people started saying a shot came from the grassy knoll area. That’s not true, as Posner knows full well. In fact, multiple witnesses came forward immediately to report they thought a gunshot had come from the grassy knoll area in front of the presidential limousine — a shot that could not have been fired by Oswald.  Wire service reporter Merriman Smith didn’t come forward 10 or 15 years later. He filed a news story to United Press International within an hour of the assassination. He wrote: "Some of the Secret Service agents thought the gunfire was from an automatic weapon fired to the right rear of the president's car, probably from a grassy knoll  to which police rushed. [emphasis added.]" Thus, it was Smith who coined the immortal phrase “grassy knoll.” You can’t say he was not a credible reporter. Smith won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting that day.  Bystander Bill Newman, who was standing about 15 feet away from Kennedy when the fatal shot hit, didn’t wait a decade. In the photo below, you can see Newman and wife Gayle (in the red dress) ducking from the gunfire. Newman talked that same day to WFAA-TV about the origins of the gunfire behind where he and his wife stood — meaning the grassy knoll area. (Forty years later, I interviewed Newman. He was a plainspoken thoughtful man, still married to Gayle, and a grandfather of nine. His story of the gunfire going over his head had not changed a bit. He was an eminently credible witness.) Secret Service agent Paul Landis, riding in the car behind JFK’s limousine, filed his written account five days later. Landis said that the fatal shot came from “somewhere towards the front” of the motorcade. And testimony from other bystanders lends credence to their reports. At least 34 witnesses would come forward to say they thought a gunshot had been fired from the grassy knoll area. A more comprehensive survey found 52 witnesses who said they heard a shot from the front of JFK’s limousine. Twenty-one of them were law enforcement officers. So Posner’s misleading claim, promulgated by the BBC, that the belief in a shot from the grassy knoll only developed years later, is factually unfounded. That belief, we now known, originated with UPI reporter Merriman Smith within minutes of JFK’s murder. Do Facts Matter? So if, 1) the survivors in JFK’s limousine didn’t believe that one bullet wounded Kennedy and Connally; and 2) if the doctors who treated JFK didn’t believe his throat wound was an exit wound; and 3) if three members of the Warren Commission and the President himself didn’t believe the single bullet theory; and 4) if dozens of bystanders said a shot came from the front, then how can History Extra blithely assert that the case for Oswald’s sole guilt is indisputable and no one should doubt it?  It is indisputable that many sane people very close to the situation said they were certain as certain can be that the single bullet theory was not true. Any fair and accurate summary of the known evidence would cast doubt the BBC’s desired conclusion. The only way the BBC, History Extra and Posner can get around this body of evidence is to abandon the practice of journalism and ignore it entirely. Yet I find it hard to believe the professional editors and reporters of the BBC are entirely innocent of the new JFK evidence. They read the Times and the Post. They watch Chuck Todd, CBS News, and C-SPAN. They listen to Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien. They must know at least some of the new JFK facts that have emerged in the past two decades, much less in the past year. But they seems to have adopted a mental mechanism that enables them to exclude inconvenient evidence from their consideration and their JFK coverage and commentary. Others will say the editors and writers of the BBC (and other MSM outlets) are psyops agents, latter-day tools of Mockingbird, a CIA operation that recruited friendly journalists from the 1940s to at least the 1970s. Still others will claim the Russian disinformation operations have influenced American thinking about a JFK conspiracy, a persistent but factually dubious claim. I think the BBC and History Extra have succumbed to the blinders of a theory, in this case, an anti-conspiracy theory. Like the editors of JAMA back in 1992, they simply assume their preconceived notions about November 22 are true. They feel no need to consider any new evidence that is cited by people who don’t believe the official JFK story. Such people are “conspiracy theorists,” and therefore any information they cite is tainted and inadmissible.  The account of the late Dr. McClelland, for example, is not considered the expert opinion of a medical professional who saw JFK’s wounds at a distance of less than two feet. He’s not cited as a professional who was revered by colleagues and students as a teacher and a man of integrity. Instead, the BBC ignored his account as if he were not a far more qualified eyewitness than the likes of those post-facto theoreticians, Arlen Specter and Gerald Posner. And so we see how the BBC’s factually challenged anti-conspiracy theory serves as a form of willful naivete. It is the armor of historical ignorance, a psychological defense that enables people to protect themselves from the unsettling (and growing) body of evidence that calls into question the official story of JFK’s assassination. The anti-conspiracy theory is politically prudent and journalistically bankrupt.

[Paul Brancato]

I like this simply put article, laying bare the unacceptably ignorant BBC. 

[George Govus]

Morley is the Sgt. Joe Friday this case needs.

Edited March 19 by George Govus
Sgt.

[Ben Green]

This smacks of someone at the BBC sensing an opportunity to get some clicks by picking a topic of modern history which is the subject of a high volume of search queries on Google.

They then would have realised how much actual legwork would go into seriously addressing the question “Who was behind JFK’s assassination?” so instead followed the path of least resistance by sticking to the 'official' version.

Poor journalism? Yes. 

Ignorant? Ditto.

Lazy journalism? No doubt.

But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the objective of the article wasn't anything more sinister.

[Benjamin Cole]

27 minutes ago, Ben Green said:

This smacks of someone at the BBC sensing an opportunity to get some clicks by picking a topic of modern history which is the subject of a high volume of search queries on Google.

They then would have realised how much actual legwork would go into seriously addressing the question “Who was behind JFK’s assassination?” so instead followed the path of least resistance by sticking to the 'official' version.

Poor journalism? Yes. 

Ignorant? Ditto.

Lazy journalism? No doubt.

But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the objective of the article wasn't anything more sinister.

I wonder. Here is the lead from the BBC story. 

"Who was behind JFK’s assassination? The real history that challenges the conspiracy

On 22 November 1963, US President John F Kennedy was killed during a procession through Dallas, Texas. But was the assassination part of a wider plot? This is the subject of an episode in the second season of our Conspiracy podcast series, in which Rob Attar speaks to Gerald Posner about why the shocking events of that day have inspired so many conspiracy theories and why the evidence points to only one culprit: Lee Harvey Oswald"

https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/who-killed-jfk-real-history-conspiracy/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

I do not know enough about Rob Attar, but jeez, you would have to volitionally ignore a mountain of serious JFKA work....to favor Gerald Posner. 

[Paul Brancato]

So who chooses the expert Posner? A press agent who makes sure his name comes up first? 

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

So who chooses the expert Posner? A press agent who makes sure his name comes up first? 

As Morley pointed out, Posner's book is 32 years old, at a time when there have been numerous information releases. 

Add on: Due to the Biden Administration's snuff job on the JFK Records Act, the public---including the media---can not confidently even today to say "We have the full record."

Any present-day review of the JFKA should start with the caveat, "There are 3,500 records pertaining to the JFK still blacked out by the public. After 60 years, the reasons for such a black-out are not compelling. A reasonable assumption is the Biden Administration has complied with the CIA in preventing the public from learning unsettling truths about the JFKA." 

The BBC report may have been done on a budget, all journalism is. But there are certain basics that do not take that much time. But, the BBC is an establishment publication. 

The BBC is known for its unrelenting woke reporting, which, curiously enough, has also become establishment reporting. 

Perhaps a parallel is the WaPo, which is woked out, but in decades and with hundreds of reporters in DC, has never broken ground on the JFKA---indeed has ridiculed the JFKA research community the whole time 

 

[Denny Zartman]

43 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Add on: Due to the Biden Administration's snuff job on the JFK Records Act, the public---including the media---can not confidently even today to say "We have the full record."

Any present-day review of the JFKA should start with the caveat, "There are 3,500 records pertaining to the JFK still blacked out by the public. After 60 years, the reasons for such a black-out are not compelling. A reasonable assumption is the Biden Administration has complied with the CIA in preventing the public from learning unsettling truths about the JFKA." 

It's simply impossible for you to be fair, isn't it?

44 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

The BBC is known for its unrelenting woke reporting, which, curiously enough, has also become establishment reporting.

🙄

[Benjamin Cole]

36 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

It's simply impossible for you to be fair, isn't it?

🙄

Explain what is unfair. Do you not believe the CIA has worked with the Biden Administration---as it worked with previous administrations---to suffocate the JFK Records Act?

In truth, the Biden Administration went even further than previous administrations, with its Orwellian "Transparency Board." 

The Mary Ferrell Foundation has alleged the Biden Administration has acted illegally in this matter, which is being litigated. Nothing I have said is nearly as florid as comments made by the MFF lawyers. 

---30---

BBC reporting is not "woke"? Have you watched any BBC reporting? 

Do you regard WaPo reporting as "woke"? Just curious.

All views are fine with me. Each to his own. If WaPo and BBC are not woke in your view, that is fine, just a different view from mine. 

[Sandy Larsen]

8 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

BBC reporting is not "woke"? Have you watched any BBC reporting? 

Do you regard WaPo reporting as "woke"? Just curious.

 

Is  being "woke" bad?

 

[W. Niederhut]

20 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Is  being "woke" bad?

 

Being "woke" is, obviously, part of the Biden snuff job on MAGA misogyny, bigotry, and homophobia... 🙄

[Denny Zartman]

.

Edited March 21 by Denny Zartman

[Ron Bulman]

Here's an article from NPR I just read.  I didn't know it came from black culture.  I think it has a different meaning now from what I've read, for those on the right at least.

What does the word 'woke' really mean, and where does it come from? : NPR

[Sandy Larsen]

10 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

What's the definition of "woke?"

 

It means being aware of prejudice against groups of people, based on race, LGBTQ, and all the other stuff that bugs bigots.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Add on: Due to the Biden Administration's snuff job on the JFK Records Act, the public---including the media---can not confidently even today to say "We have the full record."

 

Ben,

If you insist on getting your Biden digs in, do so in the other political thread that the mods are allowing to run.

Bye bye to this one.