Disinfortmation Agents

[Josiah Thompson]

I can't be of much use in explaining the various versions of this caption. I was working for LIFE at the time of the Salandria letter. In fact, I think I got Vince's letter to Ed Kern. Kern was a feature writer for LIFE, and, prior to September 1966 had had nothing to do with the JFK shooting. He was not the guy to ask about various versions of a caption and told Vince what he knew. If memory serves, Dick Stolley was asked the same question and gave pretty much the same answer as Ed Kern gave.

It is a fact that there were several versions of this caption. Apparently, you are inclined to believe that the various captions were part of a plan on LIFE's part to keep the facts of the Zapruder film from the American public. I really don't have an opinion on the question because I haven't looked into it. If I said anything about an editor being confused or their being confusion at the magazine about what was on the Zapruder film, you would claim I am some sort of apologist for LIFE or a fellow traveler for intelligence agencies. I worked for LIFE as a consultant for about four months. They sued me and made certain that all the earnings of "Six Seconds" would be used up in lawyer's bills. So I have no particular love for LIFE or any reason to defend them. All I can tell you is that I worked with group of very highly motivated journalists and we weren't restricted in what we did by higher authority at the magazine.

As for Vince Salandria... he is one of the real heros of the critical community. His early work in "Liberation" and "The Minority of One" laid out the path that we would all follow later on. Without Vince, I would not have gotten involved in the case. On the other hand, his later theorizing that Bill Turner, John Newman, the ACLU and I are all being directed by some intelligence agency is looney-tunes.

With regard to the other incidents and claims Mr. Dunne makes, I wasn’t at LIFE at the time so I have no inside knowledge at all.

Mr. Dunne also mentions “a Z-film copy pilfered [from LIFE] by its own contractee, Josiah Thompson.”  This is rather mild.  James Fetzer, Ph.D., is claiming right now on another thread on this site (the one devoted to his silly book on the Wellstone crash) that my “stealing”the Zapruder film had something to do with me leaving Haverford twelve years later.

Actually, I’m rather proud of making copy of the Zapruder film in the Time/Life Building in November of 1966.   I’m happy to take credit for it and have done it again and again.  I testified before the ARRB about it.  I offered an oral history about it for the Sixth Floor Museum’s oral history.  Finally, I published an account of it in Richard Trask’s new book on the Zapruder film.  If there was anything about it that reflected badly on me, I probably should have shut up.  But I didn’t.  In any case, the reader can judge for himself/herself whether there was anything morally demeaning in what I did. 

Not at all, Tink.  If my wording was "mild," it was because I find nothing immoral about your actions at all.  Like all others who read "6 Seconds," I was thrilled that you had done so. 

However, that you felt the necessity to "liberate" a copy of the film's key frames demonstrates precisely what I had wished to draw to Tim Gratz's attention: far from being impartial seekers of a noble truth, LIFE did all in its power to ensure that its own readers would never seen the critical frames in their proper order; not even in their own august periodical, let alone in some book that called LIFE's own prior assertions into question.

I also am glad that you mentioned Ed Kern, Tink.  Vince Salandria, whom Tim Gratz has called all but insane in past posts, reached a far less benign conclusion about LIFE's motivations than you have done.  The following is an excerpt from a COPA symposium speech given by Vince, and I think it helps illustrate precisely the point I was raising for Tim Gratz's benefit:

We will now relate how Life magazine served our military-intelligence community. Time Inc., the owners of Life, bought the rights to the Zapruder film in 1963 and withheld it from public viewing. Please pardon me for not believing that this censorship was designed to enlighten our people. We shall see that Life both censored the Zapruder film and lied about its contents. In its September 6, 1964 issue Life sought to explain away the wound in President Kennedy's neck as follows:

...it has been hard to understand how the bullet could enter the front of his throat. Hence the recurring guess that there was a second sniper somewhere else. But the 8mm. film shows the President turning his body far around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat is exposed --- toward the sniper's nest- -just before he clutches it.

But we now know that the Zapruder film tells us that the President did not turn his body far around to the right, and that his throat was not exposed toward the alleged sniper's nest. So Life was not only censoring the Zapruder film, but while having it in its sole possession, was lying about its content and therefore obstructing justice through censorship and falsification of the Zapruder film's content.

My October 2nd, 1964 issue of Life magazine contained a color reproduction of frame 313 of the 8 millimeter Zapruder motion picture showing the moment of bullet impact on President Kennedy's skull. The caption for that Zapruder frame read: "The assassins shot struck the right rear portion of the President's skull, causing a massive wound and snapping of his head to one side." To me it appeared that striking a head from the rear and causing it to snap to one side ran counter to a Newton law of motion. So, I decided to collect oher copies of the same issue of Life.

In the next copy I acquired I found that Life had changed the caption to read: "The direction from which shots came was established by this picture taken at instant bullet struck the rear of the President's head, and passing through, caused the front part of his skull to explode forward." But in this copy of the magazine Life had changed the Zapruder frame to a later one which showed that the President's whole body had been driven not only leftward but also backwards against the back seat of the limousine by a shot supposedly fired from the rear. That frame with that caption impressed me as causing even more difficulty for the Warren Report.

The next copy of Life that I found put together the exploding-forward caption with Zapruder frame 313. Life finally got the deception right. I reported these findings in my March, 1965 articles in Liberation magazine.

Later, in 1966, I inquired of Life about the three versions of the same issue. Edward Kern, a Life editor, replied in a letter to me dated November 28, 1966. In his reply he said: "I am at a loss to explain the discrepancies between the three versions of LIFE which you cite. I've heard of breaking a plate to correct an error. Ive never heard of doing it twice for a single issue, much less a single story."

Well, unlike Edward Kern, I was not at a loss to explain the three versions. To me the three versions of Life and Life's lies about what the Zapruder film revealed show in microcosm an elegant example of how the U.S. media criminally joined with U.S. governmental civilian personages, and with the national security state apparatus to employ deceit in seeking to prop up the Warren Report.

Henry R. Luce created Life magazine. He was an ardent Cold Warrior having championed the American Century and having lobbied for the National Security Act of 1947. His widow, Claire Booth Luce, was a former member of the House of Representatives and a former ambassador to Italy. She was one of Allen Dulles' lovers. In his book, The Last Investigation, my dear friend, Gaeton Fonzi, who worked for U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker while the Senator was investigating the Kennedy assassination, told how Claire Booth Luce lead them on a wild goose chase. She effectively used up their governmentally-paid-for time by sending them on a fruitless search for fanciful persons.

Congressman Gerald R. Ford, who had been a Warren Commissioner, and who was later to become President, signed that October 2, 1964 Life article. He concluded this article with the following statement: "This report is the truth as we see it, as best we know it, and on this, we rest."

The three versions of Life demonstrate clearly the criminal conspiratorial joining together of the U.S. intelligence community, the civilian aspects of our government, and our media to support the Warren Report. They were and still are all in bed together.

If Tim Gratz still believes LIFE magazine to have been an impartial and objective observer/reporter of events, rather than a dedicated accessory to the crime after the fact, it is only because he knows nothing about LIFE, its history, or its deeds.  Which hardly makes LIFE a unique topic; it's only one of multitude of topics about which he knows nothing, but about which he concludes much.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Josiah Thompson]

"As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet."

I couldn't agree more with you, Pat. From the very beginning, real research into this case has been hamstrung by the lunatic fringe. Precisely to the extent that "assassination science" replaces real science and honest research, precisely to that extent will research on the case be relegated to jokes for late night comics.

I also liked your nuanced account of the media's response to the case. Painting the media in broad strokes, really misses what is going on. If the media was so controlled by the military industrial elite, then how come LIFE and the SATURDAY EVENING POST became locked in such a pissing contest in the fall of 1967? A full account of the media's response to this case would take hundreds if not thousands of pages in order to account for the nuances of competitive journalism. It's much easier to make some general statement and get a cheering section to back it.

Robert, I think you're missing part of the picture.  The media botched their initial reporting of the Kennedy assassination so badly that they felt they should play ball with the government  to help restore order and confidence in American institutions.  By 1966, however, after Weisberg, Epstein and Lane's books were released, the media was kinda split, with some publications wanting to give the critics a fair shake and others wanting to shut them down.  The November, 1966 review of the autopsy photos and Boswell's statements were part of the government's response.  When Life came out that Thanksgiving with their article on Connally, this shifted the momentum noticeably towards the critics.  CBS then contacted McCloy and began strategizing on how to reverse this momentum.  This resulted in both the so-called Miliary Review of the autopsy materials, and the CBS 4-part defense of the Warren Commission in June, 67. This defense, by the way, did assert that the WC was wrong about a number of things, including the order of the shots.  In late 67. after Thompson's book came out, raising further questions and even gaining the support of the Saturday Evening Post, the government responded withyet another review of the autopsy materials, by what is known as the Clark Panel review.  Their report tried to answer some of Thompson's questions by changing the location of the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's skull, a movement which I believe (and will eventually prove) was a mistake.

So to say the media has always bought and sold the government line is a gross misrepresentation of history.  The attitudes' of various networks and publications have changed with the weather.  After all, wasn't The Men Who Killed Kennedy shown by a large and wealthy media conglomerate?  Wasn't JFK financed and distributed by a large and wealthy media conglomerate? Weren't many of the most influential conspiracy books distributed by mainstream publishers? My take on Life Magazine is that they were all game to push for conspiracy as long as it was a foreign conspiracy, but got gun-shy when Garrison started talking smack about Johnson and the CIA.

The current battle as I see it is not between the research community and the evil government, or the research community and the evil media, but between the research community and itself.  As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet. I was once a record buyer for a large record wholesaler.  I would read 30-100 one-sheets a day on upcoming record releases.  There were certain buzzwords, particularly on rap releases, that I learned meant the record had no story--i.e. that no one outside the artist's friends would buy it.  Those of us within the research community who wish to take our stories beyond the bounds of the CT community need to figure out how to remove those buzzwords from our one-sheet, how to make our story both palatable and credible enough for someone like Mike Wallace to risk his reputation on it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Even when we disagree, I find Robert Charles-Dunne's posts extremely valuable.

And Pat Speer's remarks are entirely appropriate. But Tink's are something else.

Josiah Thompson would have you believe that "real research" began and ended

with him and his cronies! I have had interminable exchanges with him for many

years, beginning around 1996, when I organized and moderated a symposium

on the authenticity of the Zapruder film. I have since created a video on JFK

("JFK: The Assassination, the Cover-Up, and Beyond"), chaired or co-chaired

four conferences on the death of JFK (Minneapolis 1999, Dallas 2000, Dallas

2001, and Duluth 2003), published three books (ASSASSIATION SCIENCE

1998, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA 2000, and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX

2003). I have brought together some of the most qualified individuals to ever

study the case, including a world authority on the human brain, who was also

an expert on wound ballistics; a Ph.D. in physics who is also an M.D. and board

qualified in radiation ontology, which means that he makes decisions affecting

life and death in his professional work based upon his interpretation of X-rays;

a physician who was present when JFK was brought into Trauma Room 1 and,

two days later, supervised the medical treatment of his alleged assassin; the

leading photo analyst in the history of the case, who served as an advisor to

the HSCA and later assisted Olver Stone in creating "JFK": another Ph.D. in

physics who is an expert on light and the physics of moving objects, who has

made the most important scientific discoveries about the film ever; and the

like. Thompson, for whatever reason, has committed himself to attacking me

and these books, which have been dedicated to taking rumor and speculation

and politics out of the case and placing its study on an objective and scientific

foundation. Anyone who wants to assess this man's credibility must compare

any one of these books with the three hatchet-job reviews he has posted on

amazon.com. I have dealt with him for too long to become engaged in more

of his enless savage tirades, which are grossly baseless and extremely unfair

to the excellent studies that have been made by my contributors. Just ask

yourself how likely it is that no new discoveries would have been made in

the nearly fifty years since SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS appeared! My books

include the most recent work on the most important topics by the very best

experts I have been able to bring together. Why in the world would these

books be so utterly lacking in significance? Something is going on. It seems

to me that his efforts are dedicated (a) to besmurching my reputation to dis-

courage others from reading these books, which somehow serves to give a

boost his own, apparently inadequate, self-concept, ( to restore to some

degree a reputation that has been undermined by keeping the pubic from

realizing that his work was based on the study of fake film, no matter how

admirable its theft; and, © to turn the status of knowledge about the death

of JFK to the state in which it existed before the extremely important work by

highly qualified experts appeared in the books I have published. I invite the

members of this forum to consider the situation very carefully for themselves,

since anyone with access to any on of these books should be able to compare

the book and its contents with the nasty review this guy has posted and make

a determination for themselves. In the meanwhile, he would trade upon your

gullibility by suggesting that, to be a disinformation agent. you must work for

the federal government. But that is false. To be a disinformation agent, you

only have to have an agenda that directs your use of misinformation, which is

false information. The agents of politicians, advertisers, and corporations are

experts at this craft. Those who rely upon false information without knowing

any better are simply misinformed; those who rely upon misinformation with

the deliberate intention to mislead, however, are practicing disinformation. By

providing an extremely narrow and highly misleading definition of "disinforma-

tion" itself, Thompson himself appears to be disseminating misinformation with

the intention to mislead on this very forum in this very discussion! I have made

preliminary efforts to sort out different kinds of disinformation, which appeared

earlier on my web site, http://www.assassinationscience.com. I suggest anyone

with a serious interest in this subject may want to visit and scroll down the menu

bar and find many additional discussions of this extremely important subject that

every student of history needs to understand. In the meanwhile, if you want to

understand what's going on with Thompson's attack upon me--the likes of which

he has posted literally hundreds of times since 1996--then I suggest you simply

compare one of these books and its contents with the review the man has posted.

SEE ABOVE:

"As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet."

I couldn't agree more with you, Pat.  From the very beginning, real research into this case has been hamstrung by the lunatic fringe.  Precisely to the extent that "assassination science" replaces real science and honest research, precisely to that extent will research on the case be relegated to jokes for late night comics.

I also liked your nuanced account of the media's response to the case.  Painting the media in broad strokes, really misses what is going on.  If the media was so controlled by the military industrial elite, then how come LIFE and the SATURDAY EVENING POST became locked in such a pissing contest in the fall of 1967?  A full account of the media's response to this case would take hundreds if not thousands of pages in order to account for the nuances of competitive journalism.  It's much easier to make some general statement and get a cheering section to back it.

Robert, I think you're missing part of the picture.  The media botched their initial reporting of the Kennedy assassination so badly that they felt they should play ball with the government  to help restore order and confidence in American institutions.  By 1966, however, after Weisberg, Epstein and Lane's books were released, the media was kinda split, with some publications wanting to give the critics a fair shake and others wanting to shut them down.  The November, 1966 review of the autopsy photos and Boswell's statements were part of the government's response.  When Life came out that Thanksgiving with their article on Connally, this shifted the momentum noticeably towards the critics.  CBS then contacted McCloy and began strategizing on how to reverse this momentum.  This resulted in both the so-called Miliary Review of the autopsy materials, and the CBS 4-part defense of the Warren Commission in June, 67. This defense, by the way, did assert that the WC was wrong about a number of things, including the order of the shots.  In late 67. after Thompson's book came out, raising further questions and even gaining the support of the Saturday Evening Post, the government responded withyet another review of the autopsy materials, by what is known as the Clark Panel review.  Their report tried to answer some of Thompson's questions by changing the location of the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's skull, a movement which I believe (and will eventually prove) was a mistake.

So to say the media has always bought and sold the government line is a gross misrepresentation of history.  The attitudes' of various networks and publications have changed with the weather.  After all, wasn't The Men Who Killed Kennedy shown by a large and wealthy media conglomerate?  Wasn't JFK financed and distributed by a large and wealthy media conglomerate? Weren't many of the most influential conspiracy books distributed by mainstream publishers? My take on Life Magazine is that they were all game to push for conspiracy as long as it was a foreign conspiracy, but got gun-shy when Garrison started talking smack about Johnson and the CIA.

The current battle as I see it is not between the research community and the evil government, or the research community and the evil media, but between the research community and itself.  As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet. I was once a record buyer for a large record wholesaler.  I would read 30-100 one-sheets a day on upcoming record releases.  There were certain buzzwords, particularly on rap releases, that I learned meant the record had no story--i.e. that no one outside the artist's friends would buy it.  Those of us within the research community who wish to take our stories beyond the bounds of the CT community need to figure out how to remove those buzzwords from our one-sheet, how to make our story both palatable and credible enough for someone like Mike Wallace to risk his reputation on it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Edited September 26, 2005 by James H. Fetzer

[Josiah Thompson]

Just about everything Fetzer posts, turns into an advertisement for himself and his books.

With respect to Amazon.com, I don't think my own reader's comments are in any way out-of-place or unusual. The last time I looked 9 out of the 10 most recent reviews knocked Fetzer's latest book badly. One writer wrote: "Fetzer, in all of his books, has yet to add anything of real historical value. Within the conspiracy world, Fetzer is a god. Within legitimate academic circles of real historians, he is a carnival con artist. This will eat at him forever." I don't think Fetzer's work qualifies to be that of "a carnival con man." Such a description is stronger than anything I've ever written about him. I do think that he pretends that people are "experts" when they're not, that he publishes non-facts as if they were facts and provides a kind of tabloid quality research to an area which, as Pat points out, is desperately looking for the real thing. Apparently, if the comments on Amazon.com are any indication, a lot of other readers have Fetzer's number. He'll have to come up with a new conspiracy to explain why these folks knock his products.

Fetzer claims I want to return things to their 1967 basis. This, of course, is nonsense. Let me rebut it by pointing out a major mistake I made in "Six Seconds."

I measured there that JFK's head moved forward about two inches between Z312 and Z313. This forward movement followed by the obvious left, backward snap suggested to me that he had been hit in the head from the rear and then, almost instantaneously, from the right front. Within the last few years, Art Snyder of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, was able to show me how this involved a serious mistake in measurement.

As you all know, Z312 is quite clear while Z313 is smeared from movement of the camera. Using fairly complicated math, Snyder was able to demonstrate to me that I was measuring the smear on frame Z313 and not the movement of Kennedy's head. That socalled "two-inch movement" was an illusion; it came from the smear.

David Wimp and Joe Durnavich came to much the same conclusion. Wimp, however, has gone futher. He has shown that JFK's head begins moving forward about Z308 and that everyone else in the limousine... Kellerman, Greer, Jackie, Mrs. Connally, John Connally... also begin a moderate movement forward at that time. After Z314, JFK flips backward and to the left while all the rest continue moving forward. The explanation: When Greer turned to look in the back seat at circa Z302 his foot tapped the brake, decelerating the limousine and throwing forward all the limousine's occupants. There is no longer any clear evidence in the Zapruder film of Kennedy being hit in the back of the head. (I say "clear" because there may be some evidence of a hit from the rear at Z327/328) The Z312-Z317 sequence... the bowling over of JFK to the left rear.... is the unambiguous result of a shot from the right front.

This is wonderful progress by careful research. Because of it, I am delighted to admit... even proclaim... that I made a mistake in 1967. This kind of research requires more than the National Enquirer method of research espoused by Professor Fetzer. In fact, such research would never have have been undertaken had anyone paid any attention to Fetzer's now bankrupt obsession with proving the Zapruder film a hoax.

Even when we disagree, I find Robert Charles-Dunne's posts extremely valuable.

And Pat Speer's remarks are entirely appropriate.  But Tink's are something else.

Josiah Thompson would have you believe that "real research" began and ended

with him and his cronies!  I have had interminable exchanges with him for many

years, beginning around 1996, when I organized and moderated a symposium

on the authenticity of the Zapruder film.  I have since created a video on JFK

("JFK:  The Assassination, the Cover-Up, and Beyond"), chaired or co-chaired

four conferences on the death of JFK (Minneapolis 1999, Dallas 2000, Dallas

2001, and Duluth 2003), published three books (ASSASSIATION SCIENCE

1998, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA 2000, and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX

2003).  I have brought together some of the most qualified individuals to ever

study the case, including a world authority on the human brain, who was also

an expert on wound ballistics; a Ph.D. in physics who is also an M.D. and board

qualified in radiation ontology, which means that he makes decisions affecting

life and death in his professional work based upon his interpretation of X-rays;

a physician who was present when JFK was brought into Trauma Room 1 and,

two days later, supervised the medical treatment of his alleged assassin; the

leading photo analyst in the history of the case, who served as an advisor to

the HSCA and later assisted Olver Stone in creating "JFK": another Ph.D. in

physics who is an expert on light and the physics of moving objects, who has

made the most important scientific discoveries about the film ever; and the

like.  Thompson, for whatever reason, has committed himself to attacking me

and these books, which have been dedicated to taking rumor and speculation

and politics out of the case and placing its study on an objective and scientific

foundation.  Anyone who wants to assess this man's credibility must compare

any one of these books with the three hatchet-job reviews he has posted on

amazon.com.  I have dealt with him for too long to become engaged in more

of his enless savage tirades, which are grossly baseless and extremely unfair

to the excellent studies that have been made by my contributors.  Just ask

yourself how likely it is that no new discoveries would have been made in

the nearly fifty years since SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS appeared!  My books

include the most recent work on the most important topics by the very best

experts I have been able to bring together.  Why in the world would these

books be so utterly lacking in significance?  Something is going on.  It seems

to me that his efforts are dedicated (a) to besmurching my reputation to dis-

courage others from reading these books, which somehow serves to give a

boost his own, apparently inadequate, self-concept, ( to restore to some

degree a reputation that has been undermined by keeping the pubic from

realizing that his work was based on the study of fake film, no matter how

admirable its theft; and, © to turn the status of knowledge about the death

of JFK to the state in which it existed before the extremely important work by

highly qualified experts appeared in the books I have published.  I invite the

members of this forum to consider the situation very carefully for themselves,

since anyone with access to any on of these books should be able to compare

the book and its contents with the nasty review this guy has posted and make

a determination for themselves.  In the meanwhile, he would trade upon your

gullibility by suggesting that, to be a disinformation agent. you must work for

the federal government.  But that is false.  To be a disinformation agent, you 

only have to have an agenda that directs your use of misinformation, which is

false information.  The agents of politicians, advertisers, and corporations are

experts at this craft.  Those who rely upon false information without knowing

any better are simply misinformed; those who rely upon misinformation with

the deliberate intention to mislead, however, are practicing disinformation.  By

providing an extremely narrow and highly misleading definition of "disinforma-

tion" itself, Thompson himself appears to be disseminating misinformation with

the intention to mislead on this very forum in this very discussion!  I have made

preliminary efforts to sort out different kinds of disinformation, which appeared

earlier on my web site, http://www.assassinationscience.com.  I suggest anyone

with a serious interest in this subject may want to visit and scroll down the menu

bar and find many additional discussions of this extremely important subject that

every student of history needs to understand.  In the meanwhile, if you want to

understand what's going on with Thompson's attack upon me--the likes of which

he has posted literally hundreds of times since 1996--then I suggest you simply

compare one of these books and its contents with the review the man has posted.

SEE ABOVE:

"As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet."

I couldn't agree more with you, Pat.  From the very beginning, real research into this case has been hamstrung by the lunatic fringe.  Precisely to the extent that "assassination science" replaces real science and honest research, precisely to that extent will research on the case be relegated to jokes for late night comics.

I also liked your nuanced account of the media's response to the case.  Painting the media in broad strokes, really misses what is going on.  If the media was so controlled by the military industrial elite, then how come LIFE and the SATURDAY EVENING POST became locked in such a pissing contest in the fall of 1967?  A full account of the media's response to this case would take hundreds if not thousands of pages in order to account for the nuances of competitive journalism.  It's much easier to make some general statement and get a cheering section to back it.

Robert, I think you're missing part of the picture.  The media botched their initial reporting of the Kennedy assassination so badly that they felt they should play ball with the government  to help restore order and confidence in American institutions.  By 1966, however, after Weisberg, Epstein and Lane's books were released, the media was kinda split, with some publications wanting to give the critics a fair shake and others wanting to shut them down.  The November, 1966 review of the autopsy photos and Boswell's statements were part of the government's response.  When Life came out that Thanksgiving with their article on Connally, this shifted the momentum noticeably towards the critics.  CBS then contacted McCloy and began strategizing on how to reverse this momentum.  This resulted in both the so-called Miliary Review of the autopsy materials, and the CBS 4-part defense of the Warren Commission in June, 67. This defense, by the way, did assert that the WC was wrong about a number of things, including the order of the shots.  In late 67. after Thompson's book came out, raising further questions and even gaining the support of the Saturday Evening Post, the government responded withyet another review of the autopsy materials, by what is known as the Clark Panel review.  Their report tried to answer some of Thompson's questions by changing the location of the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's skull, a movement which I believe (and will eventually prove) was a mistake.

So to say the media has always bought and sold the government line is a gross misrepresentation of history.  The attitudes' of various networks and publications have changed with the weather.  After all, wasn't The Men Who Killed Kennedy shown by a large and wealthy media conglomerate?  Wasn't JFK financed and distributed by a large and wealthy media conglomerate? Weren't many of the most influential conspiracy books distributed by mainstream publishers? My take on Life Magazine is that they were all game to push for conspiracy as long as it was a foreign conspiracy, but got gun-shy when Garrison started talking smack about Johnson and the CIA.

The current battle as I see it is not between the research community and the evil government, or the research community and the evil media, but between the research community and itself.  As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet. I was once a record buyer for a large record wholesaler.  I would read 30-100 one-sheets a day on upcoming record releases.  There were certain buzzwords, particularly on rap releases, that I learned meant the record had no story--i.e. that no one outside the artist's friends would buy it.  Those of us within the research community who wish to take our stories beyond the bounds of the CT community need to figure out how to remove those buzzwords from our one-sheet, how to make our story both palatable and credible enough for someone like Mike Wallace to risk his reputation on it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Pat Speer]

I really appreciate the candor of the last few posts. When I first started looking into this case a few years back, two of the books that left the strongest impression on me were Assassination Science and Six Seconds in Dallas. Consequently, it was most discouraging for me to discover this feud between Fetzer and Thompson.

From my perspective, FWIW, I believe Dr. Fetzer is incredibly mistaken in believing Thompson to be a disinformation agent. I don't see Thompson's continuing to champion a frontal head shot if he's a disinfo agent. I don't see Thompson's collaborating with Dr. Aguilar on a new article about the stretcher bullet if he's a disinfo agent.

On the other hand, I don't see Thompson's negative reviews of Fetzer's books as justified, and a matter of his simply disagreeing with the content. After all, Thompson's recent collaborator Dr. Aguilar wrote a long chapter in Murder in Dealey Plaza. Certainly, there are mistakes in Fetzer's books, but as Thompson himself acknowledges, there were mistakes in Six Seconds as well. Sadly it seems the biggest problem Thompson has with Fetzer's books is that Fetzer produced them.

At the risk of sounding soft, I think both men have been insensitive. Fetzer has admitted that he considered Six Seconds an important work; consequently he probably wanted Thompson's approval of his own books, and has almost certainly been stung by Thompson's rejection. Thompson's continuing assault on his work must be even more galling. Fetzer must feel that there's no way of gaining Thompson's approval, and that consequently Thompson must have some other agenda. Similarly, I believe Thompson's feelings have been hurt by Fetzer's accusations against him. For someone who was right there in the early years, risking his career and possibly his life by investigating a murder case that might very well lead directly to the sitting President, to have to put up with a Jimmy-come-lately accusing him of not only being irrelevant to the ongoing investigation, but being a disinfo agent, must prove highly irritating. Dr. Fetzer's occasional temper flare-ups and self-defensiveness can only add to Thompson's annoyance.

Sorry if this attempt at dimestore psychology wasn't worth the price of admission. I'm merely trying to show how personal feelings can affect men's judgment, even within the conspiracy community. I believe this is important because we can use this to understand the behavior of men outside the community as well. In 1993, Dr. George Lundberg, the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association defended the findings of the WC against men like Wallace Milam, David Lifton, and Cyril Wecht. His main reason cited: because he'd trust Dr. Humes with his life. Similarly, I believe many of those on the HSCA's forensic pathology panel affirmed some of the findings of the Clark Panel because they had a personal loyalty to Russell Fisher, one of the Clark Panel's doctors. That educated men will often make their brains follow their intuition, and that their intuition is inextricably entangled with their emotions, seems to be commonplace on both sides of the fence.

I think we should all be as sensitive to others as possible, and as thick-skinned to attacks from others as possible, in order to learn as much as we can on this Forum.

We have a tremendous opportunity here with some great writers among us sharing information. Let's not blow it by slapping each other silly.

Edited September 26, 2005 by Pat Speer

[Mark Knight]

Well said, Pat!

I believe the work of Mr. Thompson and that of Mr. Fetzer have helped, rather than hindered, the evaluation of the evidence. And I believe that the only folks who benefit from these guys virtually bitch-slapping each other are the Posners and the MacAdams types, who smile because this sort of bickering and infighting makes the CT crowd look something less than professional to the general public.

[Dawn Meredith]

Excellent points Mark and Pat. Regardless of our individual pet theory, can't we all please agree that the main issue here is who befefited from the murder of JFK.?

All these side argements are way secondary to the fact that our entire process was suverted on 11/22/63 and so many times since then. So long as we are arguing over whose theory is superior we are ignoring the fact that the silliest theory of them all: The WC's , is still our damn history.

That is tragic.

Dawn

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Robert, I think you're missing part of the picture.  The media botched their initial reporting of the Kennedy assassination so badly that they felt they should play ball with the government  to help restore order and confidence in American institutions.  By 1966, however, after Weisberg, Epstein and Lane's books were released, the media was kinda split, with some publications wanting to give the critics a fair shake and others wanting to shut them down.  The November, 1966 review of the autopsy photos and Boswell's statements were part of the government's response.  When Life came out that Thanksgiving with their article on Connally, this shifted the momentum noticeably towards the critics.  CBS then contacted McCloy and began strategizing on how to reverse this momentum.  This resulted in both the so-called Miliary Review of the autopsy materials, and the CBS 4-part defense of the Warren Commission in June, 67. This defense, by the way, did assert that the WC was wrong about a number of things, including the order of the shots.  In late 67. after Thompson's book came out, raising further questions and even gaining the support of the Saturday Evening Post, the government responded withyet another review of the autopsy materials, by what is known as the Clark Panel review.  Their report tried to answer some of Thompson's questions by changing the location of the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's skull, a movement which I believe (and will eventually prove) was a mistake.

So to say the media has always bought and sold the government line is a gross misrepresentation of history.  The attitudes' of various networks and publications have changed with the weather.  After all, wasn't The Men Who Killed Kennedy shown by a large and wealthy media conglomerate?  Wasn't JFK financed and distributed by a large and wealthy media conglomerate? Weren't many of the most influential conspiracy books distributed by mainstream publishers? My take on Life Magazine is that they were all game to push for conspiracy as long as it was a foreign conspiracy, but got gun-shy when Garrison started talking smack about Johnson and the CIA.

The current battle as I see it is not between the research community and the evil government, or the research community and the evil media, but between the research community and itself.  As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet. I was once a record buyer for a large record wholesaler.  I would read 30-100 one-sheets a day on upcoming record releases.  There were certain buzzwords, particularly on rap releases, that I learned meant the record had no story--i.e. that no one outside the artist's friends would buy it.  Those of us within the research community who wish to take our stories beyond the bounds of the CT community need to figure out how to remove those buzzwords from our one-sheet, how to make our story both palatable and credible enough for someone like Mike Wallace to risk his reputation on it.

Pat:

Your points are valid, but my only reference was to LIFE magazine, specifically and in particular, for the reasons stated, not the media as a whole.  [Those were Vince Salandria's broadsides.]  I did so because Tim Gratz commented that LIFE was first among those media responsible for fostering doubts about the WC's conclusions.  To reach that conclusion, of course, one must first ignore all LIFE's prior acts of bad faith, falsification and misrepresentation, as I itemized. 

That various media paid attention to the assassination several years later is no mystery: the public wasn't buying into the mythology presented by Warren, et al, and the Garrison investigation galvanized public interest in the assassination, necessitating a media response.  That LIFE finally got around to addressing Connally's assertions, several years after his testimony, is not to LIFE's credit.  It was tardy to the point of uselessness, until it was left with no option but to give the issue some play.

Likewise, if the media were so anxious to pursue other avenues as you claim, one wonders where all the large publishing houses were when the idea of Tink Thompson's "6 Seconds" was being shopped around.  One notes that Random House agreed to distribute this book [as it did with other Geis titles], but sure didn't publish it.  Publisher Bernard Geis took a flyer on "6 Seconds," which was dramatically different to his usual fare of Hollywood memoirs and other [relatively speaking]  fluff.  [Nelson Algren and a few other authors, excepted.]  Had Geis not been the ballsy maverick he was, one wonders if "6 Seconds" would have ever seen print, or if Tink would have been reduced to self-publishing, as Weisberg had been.  Perhaps Tink had other suitors, and can comment on this, but if so, it seems rather odd to have gone with a small indie house rather than one of the corporate giants that might have exercised tremendous commercial clout on his behalf.

However, I would like to now pass comment on the general performance of the mass media: it stunk.  One could write an entire book on its slipshod, half-assed, unprofessional behaviour.  Whether it was the New York Times' unqualified assertion that Oswald was "the assassin" [singular] in its initial headlines, or the uncritical acceptance by virtually all media organs of whatever was issued by government sources, one can find little in the way of distinguished or even intelligent reportage.  To merely uncritically regurgitate what one is told isn't reporting; it's stenography.  I wish to hell I could point back to a single instance in which a major media organ rose to the occasion, asked the vital questions and reported the facts fairly.  Perhaps you can, because I sure as hell have never found any such instance.  But then I've only been seeking same for 40 years.

Oddly enough, I detected no such shrinking violet behaviour from the international press of the day.  Living in Canada, I got to read the US wire service stories, but the latitude for more pointed commentary existed in a way that wasn't the case in the US.  Canadian periodicals regularly gave play to critics from the UK and Europe whose works were rarely seen Stateside.  I have boxes full of old, tattered press clippings that illustrate the chasm between the reportage in the US and everywhere else. 

As for the fact that large US media corporations later fed the public appetite by publishing heretical books, or financing Oliver Stone's film, etc., that latter-day willingness to exploit and massage the public's appetite is no substitute for the early reportage that should have taken place, but didn't.  These events were merely an acknowledgement that the media's best efforts to placate, assuage and misdirect public attention hadn't worked.

I would also like to draw specific attention to some tremendous work done in the '70s by one Earl Grolz in Dallas.  Unfortunately for us all, for every man like Earl, there were a hundred Hugh Aynesworths.   

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

It is a common ploy among propaganda experts to plant a story that conveys

the message they want to spead and then "discover" and "endorse" it. Anyone

who read the review by the writer for the Milwaukee paper would notice that

he does not even explain the book's principal findings--about the alteration of

the autopsy X-rays and the substitution of a brain--but instead trivializes the

book's contents in ways that Thompson has endlessly repeated. But, as any-

one who has actually read the book (or at least its Preface and Prologue) is

aware, I spell out--actually emphasize!--those key findings from the start,

which means that he can only have missed them on purpose! There is no

other explanation. And I am sure Pat can confirm what I am saying here.

I have no doubt that Josiah recruits his friends and buddies to put up trash

posts on amazon.com. They are so similar I even suspect that they were all

written by the same person: Tink himself! So for him to cite them is simply

more of the same. I am not hurt by his behavior: I am disgusted by him!

Here's another example of obvious lies and deliberate distortions: he says,

"I do think that he pretends that people are "experts" when they're not, that

he publishes non-facts as if they were facts and provides a kind of tabloid

quality research to an area which, as Pat points out, is desperately looking

for the real thing." Anyone who has ever picked up one of my books can

assure you that there is nothing remotely "tabloid" about any of them. It

is absurd to make this suggestion--so why does he make it? And the qual-

ifications of my contributors are always published on the CONTRIBUTORS

page. So why does he make these false, vile, and disgusting comments?

I think the reason is obvious, but it should not be trivialized. Anyone who

cannot see through this man's duplicitous conduct will never have the least

chance of figuring out what happend to JFK. If you want to know the state

of the art in 1967, by all means read SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS. If you

want to know what we know now about the death of JFK, try ASSASSIN-

ATION SCIENCE (1998), MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), and THE

GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003). Of course, you can count on him

to repeat his claim that I am always promoting these books. Well, that's

certainly true, because, page for page, they present more new discoveries

about the case than any other books ever published. But please know this,

too. I do not profit from these books. I recycle the royalties to support

additional assassination research. He knows it, but he would never tell

you. Gee, I wonder why? Think about it. Something nasty is going on.

Just about everything Fetzer posts, turns into an advertisement for himself and his books. 

With respect to Amazon.com, I don't think my own reader's comments are in any way out-of-place or unusual.  The last time I looked 9 out of the 10 most recent reviews knocked Fetzer's latest book badly.  One writer wrote:  "Fetzer, in all of his books, has yet to add anything of real historical value. Within the conspiracy world, Fetzer is a god. Within legitimate academic circles of real historians, he is a carnival con artist. This will eat at him forever." I don't think Fetzer's work qualifies to be that of "a carnival con man."  Such a description is stronger than anything I've ever written about him.  I do think that he pretends that people are "experts" when they're not, that he publishes non-facts as if they were facts and provides a kind of tabloid quality research to an area which, as Pat points out, is desperately looking for the real thing.  Apparently, if the comments on Amazon.com are any indication, a lot of other readers have Fetzer's number.  He'll have to come up with a new conspiracy to explain why these folks knock his products.

Fetzer claims I want to return things to their 1967 basis.  This, of course, is nonsense.  Let me rebut it by pointing out a major mistake I made in "Six Seconds."

I measured there that JFK's head moved forward about two inches between Z312 and Z313.  This forward movement followed by the obvious left, backward snap suggested to me that he had been hit in the head from the rear and then, almost instantaneously, from the right front.  Within the last few years, Art Snyder of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, was able to show me how this involved a serious mistake in measurement. 

As you all know, Z312 is quite clear while Z313 is smeared from movement of the camera.  Using fairly complicated math, Snyder was able to demonstrate to me that I was measuring the smear on frame Z313 and not the movement of Kennedy's head.  That socalled "two-inch movement" was an illusion; it came from the smear.

David Wimp and Joe Durnavich came to much the same conclusion.  Wimp, however, has gone futher.  He has shown that JFK's head begins moving forward about Z308 and that everyone else in the limousine... Kellerman, Greer, Jackie, Mrs. Connally, John Connally... also begin a moderate movement forward at that time.  After Z314, JFK flips backward and to the left while all the rest continue moving forward.  The explanation:  When Greer turned to look in the back seat at circa Z302 his foot tapped the brake, decelerating the limousine and throwing forward all the limousine's occupants.  There is no longer any clear evidence in the Zapruder film of Kennedy being hit in the back of the head.  (I say "clear" because there may be some evidence of a hit from the rear at Z327/328) The Z312-Z317 sequence... the bowling over of JFK to the left rear....  is the unambiguous result of a shot from the right front.

This is wonderful progress by careful research.  Because of it, I am delighted to admit... even proclaim... that I made a mistake in 1967.  This kind of research requires more than the National Enquirer method of research espoused by Professor Fetzer.  In fact, such research would never have have been undertaken had anyone paid any attention to Fetzer's now bankrupt obsession with proving the Zapruder film a hoax.

Even when we disagree, I find Robert Charles-Dunne's posts extremely valuable.

And Pat Speer's remarks are entirely appropriate.  But Tink's are something else.

Josiah Thompson would have you believe that "real research" began and ended

with him and his cronies!  I have had interminable exchanges with him for many

years, beginning around 1996, when I organized and moderated a symposium

on the authenticity of the Zapruder film.  I have since created a video on JFK

("JFK:  The Assassination, the Cover-Up, and Beyond"), chaired or co-chaired

four conferences on the death of JFK (Minneapolis 1999, Dallas 2000, Dallas

2001, and Duluth 2003), published three books (ASSASSIATION SCIENCE

1998, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA 2000, and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX

2003).  I have brought together some of the most qualified individuals to ever

study the case, including a world authority on the human brain, who was also

an expert on wound ballistics; a Ph.D. in physics who is also an M.D. and board

qualified in radiation ontology, which means that he makes decisions affecting

life and death in his professional work based upon his interpretation of X-rays;

a physician who was present when JFK was brought into Trauma Room 1 and,

two days later, supervised the medical treatment of his alleged assassin; the

leading photo analyst in the history of the case, who served as an advisor to

the HSCA and later assisted Olver Stone in creating "JFK": another Ph.D. in

physics who is an expert on light and the physics of moving objects, who has

made the most important scientific discoveries about the film ever; and the

like.  Thompson, for whatever reason, has committed himself to attacking me

and these books, which have been dedicated to taking rumor and speculation

and politics out of the case and placing its study on an objective and scientific

foundation.  Anyone who wants to assess this man's credibility must compare

any one of these books with the three hatchet-job reviews he has posted on

amazon.com.  I have dealt with him for too long to become engaged in more

of his enless savage tirades, which are grossly baseless and extremely unfair

to the excellent studies that have been made by my contributors.  Just ask

yourself how likely it is that no new discoveries would have been made in

the nearly fifty years since SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS appeared!  My books

include the most recent work on the most important topics by the very best

experts I have been able to bring together.  Why in the world would these

books be so utterly lacking in significance?  Something is going on.  It seems

to me that his efforts are dedicated (a) to besmurching my reputation to dis-

courage others from reading these books, which somehow serves to give a

boost his own, apparently inadequate, self-concept, ( to restore to some

degree a reputation that has been undermined by keeping the pubic from

realizing that his work was based on the study of fake film, no matter how

admirable its theft; and, © to turn the status of knowledge about the death

of JFK to the state in which it existed before the extremely important work by

highly qualified experts appeared in the books I have published.  I invite the

members of this forum to consider the situation very carefully for themselves,

since anyone with access to any on of these books should be able to compare

the book and its contents with the nasty review this guy has posted and make

a determination for themselves.  In the meanwhile, he would trade upon your

gullibility by suggesting that, to be a disinformation agent. you must work for

the federal government.  But that is false.  To be a disinformation agent, you 

only have to have an agenda that directs your use of misinformation, which is

false information.  The agents of politicians, advertisers, and corporations are

experts at this craft.  Those who rely upon false information without knowing

any better are simply misinformed; those who rely upon misinformation with

the deliberate intention to mislead, however, are practicing disinformation.  By

providing an extremely narrow and highly misleading definition of "disinforma-

tion" itself, Thompson himself appears to be disseminating misinformation with

the intention to mislead on this very forum in this very discussion!  I have made

preliminary efforts to sort out different kinds of disinformation, which appeared

earlier on my web site, http://www.assassinationscience.com.  I suggest anyone

with a serious interest in this subject may want to visit and scroll down the menu

bar and find many additional discussions of this extremely important subject that

every student of history needs to understand.  In the meanwhile, if you want to

understand what's going on with Thompson's attack upon me--the likes of which

he has posted literally hundreds of times since 1996--then I suggest you simply

compare one of these books and its contents with the review the man has posted.

SEE ABOVE:

"As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet."

I couldn't agree more with you, Pat.  From the very beginning, real research into this case has been hamstrung by the lunatic fringe.  Precisely to the extent that "assassination science" replaces real science and honest research, precisely to that extent will research on the case be relegated to jokes for late night comics.

I also liked your nuanced account of the media's response to the case.  Painting the media in broad strokes, really misses what is going on.  If the media was so controlled by the military industrial elite, then how come LIFE and the SATURDAY EVENING POST became locked in such a pissing contest in the fall of 1967?  A full account of the media's response to this case would take hundreds if not thousands of pages in order to account for the nuances of competitive journalism.  It's much easier to make some general statement and get a cheering section to back it.

Robert, I think you're missing part of the picture.  The media botched their initial reporting of the Kennedy assassination so badly that they felt they should play ball with the government  to help restore order and confidence in American institutions.  By 1966, however, after Weisberg, Epstein and Lane's books were released, the media was kinda split, with some publications wanting to give the critics a fair shake and others wanting to shut them down.  The November, 1966 review of the autopsy photos and Boswell's statements were part of the government's response.  When Life came out that Thanksgiving with their article on Connally, this shifted the momentum noticeably towards the critics.  CBS then contacted McCloy and began strategizing on how to reverse this momentum.  This resulted in both the so-called Miliary Review of the autopsy materials, and the CBS 4-part defense of the Warren Commission in June, 67. This defense, by the way, did assert that the WC was wrong about a number of things, including the order of the shots.  In late 67. after Thompson's book came out, raising further questions and even gaining the support of the Saturday Evening Post, the government responded withyet another review of the autopsy materials, by what is known as the Clark Panel review.  Their report tried to answer some of Thompson's questions by changing the location of the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's skull, a movement which I believe (and will eventually prove) was a mistake.

So to say the media has always bought and sold the government line is a gross misrepresentation of history.  The attitudes' of various networks and publications have changed with the weather.  After all, wasn't The Men Who Killed Kennedy shown by a large and wealthy media conglomerate?  Wasn't JFK financed and distributed by a large and wealthy media conglomerate? Weren't many of the most influential conspiracy books distributed by mainstream publishers? My take on Life Magazine is that they were all game to push for conspiracy as long as it was a foreign conspiracy, but got gun-shy when Garrison started talking smack about Johnson and the CIA.

The current battle as I see it is not between the research community and the evil government, or the research community and the evil media, but between the research community and itself.  As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet. I was once a record buyer for a large record wholesaler.  I would read 30-100 one-sheets a day on upcoming record releases.  There were certain buzzwords, particularly on rap releases, that I learned meant the record had no story--i.e. that no one outside the artist's friends would buy it.  Those of us within the research community who wish to take our stories beyond the bounds of the CT community need to figure out how to remove those buzzwords from our one-sheet, how to make our story both palatable and credible enough for someone like Mike Wallace to risk his reputation on it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Craig Lamson]

Jim wrote:

"I do not profit from these books. I recycle the royalties to support

additional assassination research."

You have made this claim often. Why not tell us exactly how that happens Jim? Does it pay for your trips to England for example?

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Never thought of that, Craig. Financed that with modest grants from

the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and the University of Minnesota.

Most of it came out of my own pocket. I am currently about six grand

in the red from financing these projects. Want to make a contribution?

Why am I not surprised that you are brown-nosing your buddy, Tink?

Jim wrote:

"I do not profit from these books. I recycle the royalties to support

additional assassination research."

You have made this claim often.  Why not tell us exactly how that happens Jim?  Does it pay for your trips to England for example?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Edited September 27, 2005 by James H. Fetzer

[Mark Knight]

Robert wrote:

That various media paid attention to the assassination several years later is no mystery: the public wasn't buying into the mythology presented by Warren, et al, and the Garrison investigation galvanized public interest in the assassination, necessitating a media response.

While I don't disagree with your use of the virtual cat-o'-nine-tails on the media, I believe your chronology in this one instance is in error. The LIFE A Matter of Reasonable Doubt issue was out in November, 1966...and the details of Garrison's investigation didn't seep into the media--or the American consciousness--to any great extent before January, 1967. So, to be accurate, the Garrison investigation didn't do anything to "necessitate" a media response in November, 1966, because it was operating below the radar until January, 1967.

Otherwise, I believe you're pretty well on the money as far as having the media "Tied to the whippin' post" [Allman Brothers Band reference, in case you missed it]. They deserve it.

[Craig Lamson]

Never thought of that, Craig.  Financed that with modest grants from

the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and the University of Minnesota.

Most of it came out of my own pocket.  I am currently about six grand

in the red from financing these projects.  Want to make a contribution?

Why am I not surprised that you are brown-nosing your buddy, Tink?

Jim wrote:

"I do not profit from these books. I recycle the royalties to support

additional assassination research."

You have made this claim often.  Why not tell us exactly how that happens Jim?  Does it pay for your trips to England for example?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jim,

No thanks. I'll let your fellow moonbats handle that. Brown nosing? LOL. I expect better retorts from you Jim.

[Josiah Thompson]

You are right, Mr. Dunne, Berney Geis was a "maverick" and didn't give a damn what other people thought of him. The book was never "shopped around" because I never had in mind writing a book. I started out writing a long article on the case with Vince Salandria. When we disagreed about a particular point of evidence, I went ahead and worked on my own. I was trying to meet with Willie Morris of Harper's when I met Geis. The full story is as follows... again from Richard Trask's new book:

July 1966 I visited the National Archives often with Philadelphia lawyer and early critic of the Warren Commission, Vincent Salandria. We viewed the Warren Commission copy of the Zapruder film. We also set up two slide projectors and confirmed there is a small forward movement of JFK’s head between Z312 and Z313. (This turned out to be a illusion caused by the smearing of Z313. There is in reality no measurable forward movement.)

September 1966 I got the book contract for “Six Seconds in Dallas” completely by accident. I had written (first with Vince Salandria and then alone) a long article on the Kennedy assassination. A mutual friend got me an appointment with Willie Morris, the editor of Harper’s magazine. I went up to New York but Morris could not see me for five or six hours. This left me with that amount of time to kill. I killed it by dropping by to see a friend of a friend, Don Preston, the Executive Editor of Bernard Geis Associates. Don and I chatted for forty minutes about what I had written in the article and he introduced me to Berney Geis. The three of us had lunch together, and, at the end of the lunch, Berney said to Don, “Write up a contract for Thompson. He’s going to write a book for us.” I was flabbergasted because I had no intention of writing a book; I was working full-time at Haverford College. But they agreed to pay expenses to send me to Dallas and give me a $500 advance. At that time I had no idea what assassination-related were available. Many were dug up during the subsequent LIFE investigation or obtained from the National Archives. The idea to use photos of evidence and of the scene to make arguments came almost a year later during the run-up to book production.

National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film (Danvers, Mass.: Yeoman Press, 2005), pages 363-364.

Robert, I think you're missing part of the picture.  The media botched their initial reporting of the Kennedy assassination so badly that they felt they should play ball with the government  to help restore order and confidence in American institutions.  By 1966, however, after Weisberg, Epstein and Lane's books were released, the media was kinda split, with some publications wanting to give the critics a fair shake and others wanting to shut them down.  The November, 1966 review of the autopsy photos and Boswell's statements were part of the government's response.  When Life came out that Thanksgiving with their article on Connally, this shifted the momentum noticeably towards the critics.  CBS then contacted McCloy and began strategizing on how to reverse this momentum.  This resulted in both the so-called Miliary Review of the autopsy materials, and the CBS 4-part defense of the Warren Commission in June, 67. This defense, by the way, did assert that the WC was wrong about a number of things, including the order of the shots.  In late 67. after Thompson's book came out, raising further questions and even gaining the support of the Saturday Evening Post, the government responded withyet another review of the autopsy materials, by what is known as the Clark Panel review.  Their report tried to answer some of Thompson's questions by changing the location of the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's skull, a movement which I believe (and will eventually prove) was a mistake.

So to say the media has always bought and sold the government line is a gross misrepresentation of history.  The attitudes' of various networks and publications have changed with the weather.  After all, wasn't The Men Who Killed Kennedy shown by a large and wealthy media conglomerate?  Wasn't JFK financed and distributed by a large and wealthy media conglomerate? Weren't many of the most influential conspiracy books distributed by mainstream publishers? My take on Life Magazine is that they were all game to push for conspiracy as long as it was a foreign conspiracy, but got gun-shy when Garrison started talking smack about Johnson and the CIA.

The current battle as I see it is not between the research community and the evil government, or the research community and the evil media, but between the research community and itself.  As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet. I was once a record buyer for a large record wholesaler.  I would read 30-100 one-sheets a day on upcoming record releases.  There were certain buzzwords, particularly on rap releases, that I learned meant the record had no story--i.e. that no one outside the artist's friends would buy it.  Those of us within the research community who wish to take our stories beyond the bounds of the CT community need to figure out how to remove those buzzwords from our one-sheet, how to make our story both palatable and credible enough for someone like Mike Wallace to risk his reputation on it.

Pat:

Your points are valid, but my only reference was to LIFE magazine, specifically and in particular, for the reasons stated, not the media as a whole.  [Those were Vince Salandria's broadsides.]  I did so because Tim Gratz commented that LIFE was first among those media responsible for fostering doubts about the WC's conclusions.  To reach that conclusion, of course, one must first ignore all LIFE's prior acts of bad faith, falsification and misrepresentation, as I itemized. 

That various media paid attention to the assassination several years later is no mystery: the public wasn't buying into the mythology presented by Warren, et al, and the Garrison investigation galvanized public interest in the assassination, necessitating a media response.  That LIFE finally got around to addressing Connally's assertions, several years after his testimony, is not to LIFE's credit.  It was tardy to the point of uselessness, until it was left with no option but to give the issue some play.

Likewise, if the media were so anxious to pursue other avenues as you claim, one wonders where all the large publishing houses were when the idea of Tink Thompson's "6 Seconds" was being shopped around.  One notes that Random House agreed to distribute this book [as it did with other Geis titles], but sure didn't publish it.  Publisher Bernard Geis took a flyer on "6 Seconds," which was dramatically different to his usual fare of Hollywood memoirs and other [relatively speaking]  fluff.  [Nelson Algren and a few other authors, excepted.]  Had Geis not been the ballsy maverick he was, one wonders if "6 Seconds" would have ever seen print, or if Tink would have been reduced to self-publishing, as Weisberg had been.  Perhaps Tink had other suitors, and can comment on this, but if so, it seems rather odd to have gone with a small indie house rather than one of the corporate giants that might have exercised tremendous commercial clout on his behalf.

However, I would like to now pass comment on the general performance of the mass media: it stunk.  One could write an entire book on its slipshod, half-assed, unprofessional behaviour.  Whether it was the New York Times' unqualified assertion that Oswald was "the assassin" [singular] in its initial headlines, or the uncritical acceptance by virtually all media organs of whatever was issued by government sources, one can find little in the way of distinguished or even intelligent reportage.  To merely uncritically regurgitate what one is told isn't reporting; it's stenography.  I wish to hell I could point back to a single instance in which a major media organ rose to the occasion, asked the vital questions and reported the facts fairly.  Perhaps you can, because I sure as hell have never found any such instance.  But then I've only been seeking same for 40 years.

Oddly enough, I detected no such shrinking violet behaviour from the international press of the day.  Living in Canada, I got to read the US wire service stories, but the latitude for more pointed commentary existed in a way that wasn't the case in the US.  Canadian periodicals regularly gave play to critics from the UK and Europe whose works were rarely seen Stateside.  I have boxes full of old, tattered press clippings that illustrate the chasm between the reportage in the US and everywhere else. 

As for the fact that large US media corporations later fed the public appetite by publishing heretical books, or financing Oliver Stone's film, etc., that latter-day willingness to exploit and massage the public's appetite is no substitute for the early reportage that should have taken place, but didn't.  These events were merely an acknowledgement that the media's best efforts to placate, assuage and misdirect public attention hadn't worked.

I would also like to draw specific attention to some tremendous work done in the '70s by one Earl Grolz in Dallas.  Unfortunately for us all, for every man like Earl, there were a hundred Hugh Aynesworths.   

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[John Simkin]

There has been some good information on Life Magazine in this thread. I have therefore placed it in a new thread and added it to the index of the site. Please post further comments here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5046

I have also started a thread on how the media reported this event.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5047