Nigel Turner's The Guilty Men

[John Simkin]

For the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Nigel Turner produced three more installments of "The Men Who Killed Kennedy": The Love Affair, The Smoking Guns and The Guilty Men. The third of these documentaries looked at the possibility that Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcolm Wallace and Edward A. Clark were involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The programme used evidence from the book by Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK by Barr McClellan. It also used other sources such as the testimony of Madeleine Brown and Billie Sol Estes and the research of Walt Brown, Ed Tatro, Rick Russo, Glen Sample, and Gregory Burnham.

The Guilty Men, probably the best in the series, was immediately banned after pressure from Lady Bird Johnson and Gerald Ford.

Does anyone know the latest situation concerning The Guilty Men?

[Francesca Akhtar]

As far as I know, 'The Guilty Men' is still banned. On Glen Sample and Mark Collom's site :

http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/

you can email them if you haven't seen it and would like to or if you have a copy you're willing to lend someone else.

[Bill Grote]

I'm glad that the U.S. is a nation that values freedom of speech. (As long as it doen't offend the rich and politically powerful.) So much for what they teach in the textbooks at school.

[Bill Cheslock]

I'm glad that the U.S. is a nation that values freedom of speech. (As long as it doen't offend the rich and politically powerful.) So much for what they teach in the textbooks at school.

Bill

You mentioned freedom of speech. If we take a look at what's

happening to the media now, one would have to agree with you. Not

only did the History Channel succumb to the politically powerful and rich,

I'll venture to say that the HC lost quite a bit of revenue when it wasn't

"allowed" to keep "The Guilty Men" on the market for sale.

Bill C

[Guest John Gillespie]

I'm glad that the U.S. is a nation that values freedom of speech. (As long as it doen't offend the rich and politically powerful.) So much for what they teach in the textbooks at school.

We can all start our own entity. Never mind, I think we have...

[Pat Speer]

John, I talked to Ed Tatro a bit at last year's Lancer conference, and in Dealey Plaza the year before. He's a researcher who really has it in for Johnson. He was quoted extensively in The Guilty Men. He says it was not Gerald Ford and Lady Bird who got the show banned as much as it was former Johnson aide, and long-time President of the Academy of Motiion Pictures, Jack Valenti, and former Johnson aide, and long-time champion of the liberal media, Bill Moyers. I found it extemely ironic that these two men in particular, whose lives have been devoted to introducing "a world of ideas" to the globe, via film, books, and television, would find the expression of the thought of Johnson's involvement in the assassination, something any rational man should have pondered, so reprehensible that it must be silenced. Although I didn't see it myself, my understanding is that at the same time they banned The Guilty Men, The History Channel ran a new documentary where mainstream historians discussed The Guilty Men and why it was so flagrantly wrong in its conclusions. It seems to me that history and The History Channel would have been better served if they'd aired The Guilty Men, followed it with the conservative historian response, and then aired a moderated discussion between the two sides of the issue. But that was not to be. The free exchange of ideas is a bit dangerous. y'know. If I had been on the side with Tatro my first question would have been to Bill Moyers; I'd have looked him in the eye and asked "Now Mr. Moyers, you're a student of history; certainly you know that there is a long history of assassination by men second-in-command to achieve power. Johnson was a man who sought power. What is it about Johnson, in particular, that makes it unthinkable to you that he would seek to achieve power in such a way? His involvement in the assassination must have crossed your mind. What made you reject it?"

On occasion I've posted on The History Channel's Forum. It's a bit scary over there. There are a number of Gratz types, including one with the moniker Mr. Conservatism, who post all day long, seven days a week, creating threads with headings like "Why do Liberals hate America?" When I brought up the Kennedy issue a number of them jumped on me, stating that it's a dead issue and that the single-bullet theory has been proven over and over again. When I asked them a few questions about the medical evidence I knew none of them could answer, one guy posted a link to a site that would answer ALL my questions. It was a link to Dale Myers' site. When I let them know that I have a section on Myers in my presentation, and his animation is blatantly dishonest and demonstrably inaccurate, the thread promptly died.

It is my suspicion that forums like The History Channel's have been targeted by ultra-right-wingers as part of their efforts to win what they perceive as a culture war. They're in it till the death...America, right or wrong, blah blah blah... I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Conservatism is sitting in a cubicle at The Heritage Foundation right now, plotting out his next attack on the "Dems" who "hate our men in uniform".

[Greg Wagner]

I'm glad that the U.S. is a nation that values freedom of speech. (As long as it doen't offend the rich and politically powerful.) So much for what they teach in the textbooks at school.

Bill

You mentioned freedom of speech. If we take a look at what's

happening to the media now, one would have to agree with you. Not

only did the History Channel succumb to the politically powerful and rich,

I'll venture to say that the HC lost quite a bit of revenue when it wasn't

"allowed" to keep "The Guilty Men" on the market for sale.

Bill C

Hi Bill,

According to Vince Palamara (who is featured in one of the episodes), the episode 7-9 DVD was the HC's best seller for the short amount of time it was available for purchase. In our society, when a company leaves that kind of money on the table and walks away, you can rest assured that there was some very serious pressure being applied. Nobody just quits a profitable product, which I'm sure the HC had invested dollars in, unless they are confronted with serious consequences for proceeding.

[Jack White]

For the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Nigel Turner produced three more installments of "The Men Who Killed Kennedy": The Love Affair, The Smoking Guns and The Guilty Men. The third of these documentaries looked at the possibility that Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcolm Wallace and Edward A. Clark were involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The programme used evidence from the book by Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK by Barr McClellan. It also used other sources such as the testimony of Madeleine Brown and Billie Sol Estes and the research of Walt Brown, Ed Tatro, Rick Russo, Glen Sample, and Gregory Burnham.

The Guilty Men, probably the best in the series, was immediately banned after pressure from Lady Bird Johnson and Gerald Ford.

Does anyone know the latest situation concerning The Guilty Men?

John...the visible pressure was by the powerful JACK VALENTI...who owed EVERYTHING to LBJ.

Do you have a profile on Valenti?

According to the late Madeleine Brown, whose son was fathered by Lyndon, he had other

children that he "handled" he same way as in her case. She claimed to know of several

other mistresses who had children by LBJ. She believed one of these was a mistress in

Houston. According to Madeleine, just as LBJ arranged for his friend "Brown" to marry her,

in Houston, he had his friend Valenti marry a mistress to "legitimize" another pregnacy.

If this is ever proved, Valenti will be ruined.

Jack

PS...do not consider the above as "fact"...it was just an opinion expressed by Madeleine.

Edited March 25, 2006 by Jack White

[John Simkin]

John, I talked to Ed Tatro a bit at last year's Lancer conference, and in Dealey Plaza the year before. He's a researcher who really has it in for Johnson. He was quoted extensively in The Guilty Men. He says it was not Gerald Ford and Lady Bird who got the show banned as much as it was former Johnson aide, and long-time President of the Academy of Motiion Pictures, Jack Valenti, and former Johnson aide, and long-time champion of the liberal media, Bill Moyers. I found it extemely ironic that these two men in particular, whose lives have been devoted to introducing "a world of ideas" to the globe, via film, books, and television, would find the expression of the thought of Johnson's involvement in the assassination, something any rational man should have pondered, so reprehensible that it must be silenced.

I am interviewed in Lyle Sardie’s video and my voice is played over in other scenes in the work.

Here is some background as to how this came about.

Lyle had called me from his home in the Los Angeles area and had asked me to meet him at a hotel in Houston to discuss LBJ. When I arrived he immediately ushered me into another suite where his video camera was set up and started asking me questions with the camera rolling. Faced with this unexpected situation I decided to go ahead with the interview, although it would have gone better for both Lyle and myself had he informed me ahead of time that he planned to video-tape me. That way I could have given some prior thought as to exactly what I wanted to say.

However, I was deeply impressed with Lyle’s sincerity and his keen desire to make a historical record of the LBJ-Estes-Wallace conspiracy. Afterwards I supplied him with additional materials as best I could, including an article from People Magazine on Madeline Brown that he had not seen, and a key article from the Texas Observer on the murder of Henry Marshall.

Lyle was quite excited about the prospects of his completed video being shown at film festivals and of its being marketed successfully.

What he failed to realize was that Jack Valenti, LBJ’s former aide who was sitting in Hollywood as chief of the motion picture industry, would use all his power to make certain that Lyle’s video would go nowhere. If Estes is to be believed, Valenti has a personal reason to kill any expose of LBJ, a reason that goes beyond his faithful White House service.

Valenti was successful in torpedoing Lyle’s video in 1998, just as he was successful subsequently in bringing pressure to bear on the History Channel to ban from its archives Nigel Turner’s work, “The Guilty Men.”

However, by using Nazi methods to bury the truth, what Valenti has done is to pique the interest of historians and other persons who think maybe there may well be something here worth “a closer look.”

[Bill Cheslock]

I'm glad that the U.S. is a nation that values freedom of speech. (As long as it doen't offend the rich and politically powerful.) So much for what they teach in the textbooks at school.

Bill

You mentioned freedom of speech. If we take a look at what's

happening to the media now, one would have to agree with you. Not

only did the History Channel succumb to the politically powerful and rich,

I'll venture to say that the HC lost quite a bit of revenue when it wasn't

"allowed" to keep "The Guilty Men" on the market for sale.

Bill C

Hi Bill,

According to Vince Palamara (who is featured in one of the episodes), the episode 7-9 DVD was the HC's best seller for the short amount of time it was available for purchase. In our society, when a company leaves that kind of money on the table and walks away, you can rest assured that there was some very serious pressure being applied. Nobody just quits a profitable product, which I'm sure the HC had invested dollars in, unless they are confronted with serious consequences for proceeding.

Hello Greg

Your point about what Vince Palamara said reveals much about how important it was for the "influential" individuals who pressured the HC to relinquish this very profitable product. I was fortunate to see the program, and the information in it was fascinating. I found the witnesses who were interviewed to be very credible. I would be interested to hear what others who saw the documentary, "The Guilty Men," thought of it.

Bill C

[John Simkin]

According to Vince Palamara (who is featured in one of the episodes), the episode 7-9 DVD was the HC's best seller for the short amount of time it was available for purchase. In our society, when a company leaves that kind of money on the table and walks away, you can rest assured that there was some very serious pressure being applied. Nobody just quits a profitable product, which I'm sure the HC had invested dollars in, unless they are confronted with serious consequences for proceeding.

They were obviously made an offer they could not refuse. I suspect it was a generous payment rather than a threat of some sort of punishment. Ever since the late 1940s the CIA have used money to deal with troublesome left-wingers in the UK (initially they used money from the Marshall Plan to do this). I don’t expect Nigel Turner will be making any more films about the JFK assassination.

[Pat Speer]

I don't think there were any bribes involved, John. It was pure power politics. Valenti, Moyers, Johnson, Ford, Specter, etc, have a lot of friends in government and the media. A lawsuit could have been damaging regarding the History Channel's fact-checking, etc. Of course, The History Channel took the smart way out. They aired a contoversial program and weren't prepared to back it up. Therefore, they disowned the product and aired a retraction. That's what media corporations do. Freedom of Speech isn't as important to them as keeping the FCC off their back.

[Douglas Caddy]

I don't think there were any bribes involved, John. It was pure power politics. Valenti, Moyers, Johnson, Ford, Specter, etc, have a lot of friends in government and the media. A lawsuit could have been damaging regarding the History Channel's fact-checking, etc. Of course, The History Channel took the smart way out. They aired a contoversial program and weren't prepared to back it up. Therefore, they disowned the product and aired a retraction. That's what media corporations do. Freedom of Speech isn't as important to them as keeping the FCC off their back.

As I had assisted Barr McClellan, along with J. Harrison, in the very early stages of the research on his book, “Blood, Money and Power: How LBJ killed JFK,” I took a particular interest in how the History Channel reacted to the uproar organized by Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers following its airing of Nigel Turner’s “The Guilty Men.”

A spokesman for the History Channel initially took a strong public stand against the criticism of the show and the calls for banning the show from its archives and from allowing copies of it to be purchased by the public. In essence, the spokesman said that “The Guilty Men” was just another version of a conspiracy that might have been behind the JFK assassination, one version among others that it had aired. This defense by the History Channel continued publicly for several days until articles in the major media, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, lashed out vehemently against Nigel Turner’s work. Valenti and his crew of history-burners are quite powerful and have friends in high places and were able to mobilize these to bring pressure to bear on the History Channel.

A great number of the shows that appear on the History Channel are based on speculation and circumstantial evidence and are not subjected to fact-checking before they are aired. A lawsuit against the History Channel was unlikely as there existed no existing person who had legal standing to bring such an action. In any event such a lawsuit would have merely opened up the entire topic to intense public scrutiny, which would have proved counter-productive to Valenti and his crew.

In the weeks before the official release date of Barr McClellan’s book, I received a number of phone calls from a mysterious person who was quite concerned about the contents of McClellan’s forthcoming book and the fact that ultimately behind it was a major publishing concern that did not appear as the listed publisher. I reported these calls to Barr, who told me he had received similar calls from the same mysterious person. We agreed it was probably someone, a private investigator perhaps, who had been retained by those with a vested interest in keeping the LBJ-Estes-Wallace conspiracy cloaked in obscurity.

My educated guess is that the postings here in the Forum about LBJ’s connection to the Kennedy assassination are causing major heartburn-attacks in these same persons who want to keep things forever mum. Many of the Forum postings by its members contain invaluable information that will prove to be a treasure trove in the future for historians.

[John Simkin]

My educated guess is that the postings here in the Forum about LBJ’s connection to the Kennedy assassination are causing major heartburn-attacks in these same persons who want to keep things forever mum.

I have also been told this by an “insider”.

Many of the Forum postings by its members contain invaluable information that will prove to be a treasure trove in the future for historians.

Nothing will give me more pleasure than historians or journalists using this Forum to solve this and other historical "mysteries".

[David G. Healy]

I don't think there were any bribes involved, John. It was pure power politics. Valenti, Moyers, Johnson, Ford, Specter, etc, have a lot of friends in government and the media. A lawsuit could have been damaging regarding the History Channel's fact-checking, etc. Of course, The History Channel took the smart way out. They aired a contoversial program and weren't prepared to back it up. Therefore, they disowned the product and aired a retraction. That's what media corporations do. Freedom of Speech isn't as important to them as keeping the FCC off their back.

What would the FCC have to say regarding the airing of that series? Broadcast Media corporations SELL advertising space and/or time.

I bet 50% of History Channel fare is *opinion*, based on historical event