On the 60th Anniversary of the Warren Report

[James DiEugenio]

This is an infamous day.  In 1964, the Warren Report was first issued to the public on September 27th.

The media accepted it with an eagerness that was suspicious in itself.

Because the report was released without the 26 volumes of testimony and evidence.

But yet, on the day it was released, both NBC and CBS had special programming that was entirely based on the report's conclusions, broadcasting to millions as if it was the gospel truth about a quite complex event.  That turned out to be a huge mistake.  One that the MSM has never been able to correct or live down.  Below I examine some of the obvious errors that could have been avoided, what Arlen Specter really thought and the disastrous historical consequences that followed without being noted at the time.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/warren-commission-report-60-years-later

 

Edited yesterday at 06:37 PM by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is an infamous day.  In 1964, the Warren Report was first issued to the public on September 27th.

The media accepted it with an eagerness that was suspicious in itself.

Because the report was released without the 26 volumes of testimony and evidence.

But yet, on the day it was released, both NBC and CBS had special programming that was entirely based on the report's conclusions, broadcasting to millions as if it was the gospel truth about a quite complex event.  That turned out to be a huge mistake.  One that the MSM has never been able to correct or live down.  Below I examine some of the obvious errors that could have been avoided, what Arlen Specter really thought and the disastrous historical consequences that followed without being noted at the time.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/warren-commission-report-60-years-later

 

JD---Thank you for a great and dispiriting review of the WC and an op-mocked media. Accessories after the fact.

Not unlike the snuff job perped by the Biden Administration on the JFK Records...and crickets from the media.

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Ben.

BTW, of all the things I noted in there, the one that really puzzles me is how the MSM raised nary a peep about the hearings being closed to the public.

Can you imagine trying to do something like that over a colossal event today?

And as I commented, Mark Lane was the only witness who protested.  And he therefore forced them to open his.

And then without observing any of the witnesses being examined, and then not reading the testimony or the evidence, they went ahead and hailed the Warren Report as a superb job of investigation. 

Talk about a bunch of lemmings.

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

JD---Thank you for a great and dispiriting review of the WC and an op-mocked media. Accessories after the fact.

Not unlike the snuff job perped by the Biden Administration on the JFK Records...and crickets from the media.

Not to mention the Fox News crickets about the historic 2017 and 2018 snuff job perped by the Trump administration on the JFK Records, eh, Benjamin?

You weren't around at the time, but most of us-- including Oliver Stone-- were deeply disappointed about that 2017 Trump snuff job on the JFKA records.

Tucker Carlson only got interested in the subject a few years later, when it presented an opportunity to bash Biden-- and to propagate Tucker's bogus "patriot purge" narrative depicting the J6 felon, Trump, as some sort of heroic victim of the Deep State.

And unfortunately, a lot of gullible people fell for Tucker's "patriot purge" narrative about Trump's historic January 6th crimes against the United States.

 

Edited 22 hours ago by W. Niederhut

[K K Lane]

Thank you, Jim, for your 60th anniversary thoughts.   You're K&K articles on the 50th is part of what stimulated my interest in JFKA.

[James DiEugenio]

You are welcome Mr. Lane.

And William, there was a lot of attention given to what Trump did back then.

There were actually reports live on it.

Comparatively speaking, there was much less on Biden.  

Getting back to my article, the other thing that was so lacking was the fact that once the volumes were published, I can recall no MSM review to compare the report with the evidence.  It was not the MSM that brought up the absurdity of the SBT, it was Vince Salandria.  And as I noted  in my obit for VInce, it was him who challenged Specter in person at a talk in Philly. And of course it was Vince who tutored Fonzi for his interview with Specter.

Today, as noted, we know this was a conscious decision posed by Specter to the Commission: abide by the Magic Bullet or start looking for a second assassin.  

They were not going to do the latter.

[W. Niederhut]

38 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

You are welcome Mr. Lane.

And William, there was a lot of attention given to what Trump did back then.

There were actually reports live on it.

Comparatively speaking, there was much less on Biden.  

 

Jim,

     Just to clarify, we had an Education Forum thread or two here in 2017 about Oliver Stone's public comment about Trump getting "rolled" by the Deep State, and another thread in 2020 about Trump's historic 2017 suppression of the JFK Records.

     In contrast, if you do an Education Forum search for "Biden snuff job" (content and titles) you will find 9 PAGES of redundant posts containing that "Biden snuff job" trope, and 13 PAGES of posts referring to the Biden "snuff job"-- most recently on this very thread.

 

Edited 19 hours ago by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Thanks Ben.

BTW, of all the things I noted in there, the one that really puzzles me is how the MSM raised nary a peep about the hearings being closed to the public.

Can you imagine trying to do something like that over a colossal event today?

And as I commented, Mark Lane was the only witness who protested.  And he therefore forced them to open his.

And then without observing any of the witnesses being examined, and then not reading the testimony or the evidence, they went ahead and hailed the Warren Report as a superb job of investigation. 

Talk about a bunch of lemmings.

JD-

Let ne first echo KK Lane's comments. 

To be sure, the mainstream, and even alternative medias have changed in the last 60 years, and also expectations of government. 

There are at least Congressional investigations into the multiplying Trump Assassination Attempts (TAAs), and perhaps even a state investigation. As you know better than I, back in 1963-4, the State of Texas and Congress evaporated when it came to the JFKA. 

AFAIK, the TAA's are not US Deep State efforts, and the one from Iran, well who knows.  But certainly it is better to have multiple look-sees into the matter. This seems an improvement. 

As for modern media, while there is an online alt-media today, it has become heavily partisan and politicized, and superficial, like all media. The righties are hinting the Deep State is after Trump, and the lefties are calling people conspiracy nuts. They are even calling JFKA/RFK1A researchers conspiracy nuts. In other words, media has become a blob of party narratives and agendas. 

Gone are serious alt-media publications, like NYROB, or Village Voice, whatever lapses or shortcomings they may have had. Is there an IF Stone today? 

I am happy to take my hat off to you, who has tenaciously pursued the JFKA/RFK1A truth without fear or favor or decades, and without  partisan blind-spots or agendas.  We may disagree on this or that event or issue, but I always believe you are earnestly telling like it is, by  your lights. 

And that is what the EF-JFKA is for. 

 

[Ron Bulman]

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jim,

     Just to clarify, we had an Education Forum thread or two here in 2017 about Oliver Stone's public comment about Trump getting "rolled" by the Deep State, and another thread in 2020 about Trump's historic 2017 suppression of the JFK Records.

     In contrast, if you do an Education Forum search for "Biden snuff job" (content and titles) you will find 9 PAGES of redundant posts containing that "Biden snuff job" trope, and 13 PAGES of posts referring to the Biden "snuff job"-- most recently on this very thread.

 

It's snuff.

 

[James DiEugenio]

I agree that the NYRB is not what it used to be on the JFK case.

I also agree that much of the on line so called is altmedia is really so partisan that it not worth reading.  I know since I stopped reading it a long time ago.

It has been really disappointing to see how those sites either ignored the JFK and RFK and MLK cases, or they discounted their importance, I mean reading Josh Marshall for example just about made me throw up.  I mean the lack of knowledge of history was simply appalling.

[W. Niederhut]

    Yes, as we all know very well, our media has failed for 60 years to tell the public the truth about the JFK assassination, with the truly anomalous exception of Tucker Carlson's recent, rare lapse into honesty in discussing CIA involvement in the JFKA.

    But let's recall that Tucker had testified, under oath in the Dominion case, that he had deliberately lied in promoting Trump's "Stop the Steal" scam after the 2020 election.

     70% of Republicans still believe that flamer.

     Tucker also lied, systematically, to cover up Trump's historic J6 Insurrection plot, by mis-labelling it as a Deep State "patriot purge."

      And how ironic that our closet "patriot purger," Benjamin Cole, of all people, would decry the "politicization" and "partisanship" of the liberal alt media!

       Ben is, apparently, unfamiliar with the fact-checkers and academic studies that have documented Trump's pervasive lies, and the corresponding delusions of MAGA media viewers in the Trump cult.

[Pat Speer]

I think it should be pointed out that the key players in the mainstream media all saw it as their job to help good ole uncle Earl roll out his report, in a massive PR blitz. And no one saw it as their job to review the facts, or present contrary evidence

From chapter 3c:

 

In any event, on 9-24-64, at 11:00 AM, the Commission gives their completed report to President Johnson. After receiving the report, Johnson calls Senator Richard Russell in his office for a private conversation. He then calls Governor John Connally in Texas. Neither of these conversations, which almost certainly touched upon the Kennedy assassination and Warren Report, were recorded. Or at least no recordings remain of these conversations. 

Although the report's conclusions are supposedly hush-hush until the 28th, copies of the report are provided the press on the morning of the 26th, so that the release of the report can be orchestrated and the report's conclusions can reach the widest audience possible. A publisher's note in the 10-2-64 issue of Time Magazine reveals:

"While printing presses ran day and night to reprint the full document in various editions, our job was different: we went to work to excerpt the report, cull its most significant detail, and summarize its meaning in a special nine-page section.

The task began on Friday morning, 54 hours before the report’s official release and less than 36 hours before this issue was to go to press. In the Indian Treaty Room of Washington’s old Executive Office Building, advance copies were being handed out to the press from three pushcarts. Near the head of the line that had formed was John Brown, a messenger working for TIME’S Washington Bureau. He placed ten copies in a suitcase and headed for the airport. Less than two hours later, copies were turned over to a team assigned to prepare the special section—Nation Editor Champ Clark, Writers Marshall Loeb and William Johnson, Researchers Harriet Heck and Pat Gordon. They closed their doors and started reading the nearly 300,000 words.

About seven hours later, they were ready for a dinner conference with TIME’S managing editor. The entire section was written, edited, checked and in type not long after our usual press time on Saturday night."

And it wasn't just the print media that was given a heads-up. CBS News broadcast a special report on Warren's report on the night of the 27th.  Mid-way through this special, Walter Cronkite announced: "The final Warren Commission report has been printed. Newsman have had their copies all weekend and a half hour from now the findings will be released to the public. We will report them to you at the time."

It should be noted that the 36-hour window between receipt and broadcast/publication provided CBS, Time, and other prominent news outlets little or no time to critique the report, compare its findings to the statements of prominent witnesses, or perform any kind of detailed analysis. By throwing the press a bone on a Friday morning, the Johnson Administration had bought itself a week of support and even praise. It's hard to believe this was a coincidence.