Was Harold Weisberg a witting servant of the CIA?

[Michael Hogan]

On August 13, discussing the Zapruder film, Paul Rigby posted:

The really startling meaning of Weisberg’s passage is much more interesting: He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written: “It would have been better had Life been able to buy all the films exposed at Dealey Plaza that day…” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, pp.217/8).

In the same thread Rigby also wrote:

Now how did Weisberg, this highly intelligent man with war-time experience in the OSS, deal with this (Zapruder's) testimony? Did he deal with it competently and honestly? Not a bit of it.

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars........

And:

Of course, we don’t have to rely on my interpretation of Zapruder’s word alone, though you wouldn’t know it from Weisberg, who’s as anxious to suppress the confirmatory detail to follow as any Warren Commission shyster. (A challenge: name one newspaper article on the Zapruder film from the period November –December 1963 instanced by Weisberg. Some of us seek a free flow of information, while Weisy...?)

Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?

[David G. Healy]

On August 13, discussing the Zapruder film, Paul Rigby posted:

The really startling meaning of Weisberg’s passage is much more interesting: He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written: “It would have been better had Life been able to buy all the films exposed at Dealey Plaza that day…” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, pp.217/8).

In the same thread Rigby also wrote:

Now how did Weisberg, this highly intelligent man with war-time experience in the OSS, deal with this (Zapruder's) testimony? Did he deal with it competently and honestly? Not a bit of it.

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars........

And:

Of course, we don’t have to rely on my interpretation of Zapruder’s word alone, though you wouldn’t know it from Weisberg, who’s as anxious to suppress the confirmatory detail to follow as any Warren Commission shyster. (A challenge: name one newspaper article on the Zapruder film from the period November –December 1963 instanced by Weisberg. Some of us seek a free flow of information, while Weisy...?)

Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?

do YOU?

[Terry Mauro]

On August 13, discussing the Zapruder film, Paul Rigby posted:

The really startling meaning of Weisberg’s passage is much more interesting: He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written: “It would have been better had Life been able to buy all the films exposed at Dealey Plaza that day…” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, pp.217/8).

In the same thread Rigby also wrote:

Now how did Weisberg, this highly intelligent man with war-time experience in the OSS, deal with this (Zapruder's) testimony? Did he deal with it competently and honestly? Not a bit of it.

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars........

And:

Of course, we don’t have to rely on my interpretation of Zapruder’s word alone, though you wouldn’t know it from Weisberg, who’s as anxious to suppress the confirmatory detail to follow as any Warren Commission shyster. (A challenge: name one newspaper article on the Zapruder film from the period November –December 1963 instanced by Weisberg. Some of us seek a free flow of information, while Weisy...?)

Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?

do YOU?

*****************************************************

"Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?"

If you've read Weisberg's work, you wouldn't have to ask that question. I believe Rigby may be attempting to interpret Weisberg from a totally different objective. Remember from where, and from what place, in time Weisberg was working. I also don't believe that every person with ties to, or working for, the O.S.S. was necessarily corrupt, either. It was a different time and place after World War II, with the Korean War being only the first in the U.S.'s major follies in Indochina/SEA.

So, if you've really read Weisberg, and still have any doubts, maybe you should go over the "Whitewash" series again.

Just an afterthought.

[Jack White]

On August 13, discussing the Zapruder film, Paul Rigby posted:

The really startling meaning of Weisberg’s passage is much more interesting: He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written: “It would have been better had Life been able to buy all the films exposed at Dealey Plaza that day…” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, pp.217/8).

In the same thread Rigby also wrote:

Now how did Weisberg, this highly intelligent man with war-time experience in the OSS, deal with this (Zapruder's) testimony? Did he deal with it competently and honestly? Not a bit of it.

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars........

And:

Of course, we don’t have to rely on my interpretation of Zapruder’s word alone, though you wouldn’t know it from Weisberg, who’s as anxious to suppress the confirmatory detail to follow as any Warren Commission shyster. (A challenge: name one newspaper article on the Zapruder film from the period November –December 1963 instanced by Weisberg. Some of us seek a free flow of information, while Weisy...?)

Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?

do YOU?

*****************************************************

"Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?"

If you've read Weisberg's work, you wouldn't have to ask that question. I believe Rigby may be attempting to interpret Weisberg from a totally different objective. Remember from where, and from what place, in time Weisberg was working. I also don't believe that every person with ties to, or working for, the O.S.S. was necessarily corrupt, either. It was a different time and place after World War II, with the Korean War being only the first in the U.S.'s major follies in Indochina/SEA.

So, if you've really read Weisberg, and still have any doubts, maybe you should go over the "Whitewash" series again.

Just an afterthought.

Right, Terry...Harold was a gruff grouchy curmudgeon, and a terrible writer.

But he was on the right track, and after all these years, most of his voluminous

research still holds up. Nobody's perfect.

Jack

[Michael Hogan]

"Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?"

If you've read Weisberg's work, you wouldn't have to ask that question. I believe Rigby may be attempting to interpret Weisberg from a totally different objective. Remember from where, and from what place, in time Weisberg was working. I also don't believe that every person with ties to, or working for, the O.S.S. was necessarily corrupt, either. It was a different time and place after World War II, with the Korean War being only the first in the U.S.'s major follies in Indochina/SEA.

So, if you've really read Weisberg, and still have any doubts, maybe you should go over the "Whitewash" series again.

Just an afterthought.

Terry,

Thanks for your response. Whether I have read Weisberg or not is irrelevant to my question. Whether I have any doubts or not is also irrelevant. To me, Paul Rigby's claim was so preposterous that I wanted to see if there was a single Forum member that agreed with him.

Did my question imply that I agreed with Paul Rigby? He's the one that made those claims, not me.

Maybe you should address your advice to Paul.

Just an afterthought,

Mike

Edited August 17, 2006 by Michael Hogan

[Pat Speer]

I've been reading a lot of Weisberg lately, particularly Post-Mortem, and there is little doubt that he, with the possible exception of Mark Lane, was the BIGGEST pain in the government's collective ass in regards to the assassination. He was nobody's servant. Perhaps what Rigby is missing is that the Zapruder film was considered to be the proof of conspiracy for many many years before anyone started thinking that it too had been faked.

[Jack White]

Right, Terry...Harold was a gruff grouchy curmudgeon, and a terrible writer.

But he was on the right track, and after all these years, most of his voluminous

research still holds up. Nobody's perfect.

Jack

Curmudgeon he WAS! I'll never forget the first answer I got from him in a long letter exchange!....And he knew I was on both his 'side' and a fan of his!.....He snapped at me for not correctly understanding FBI marginalia and notations of who had read what and when, etc. But I have always thought he tried to do his best to expose what he knew was a CIA/FBI/other Goverment agency and person coup d'etat. He self published his books and they were 'crude' but on track and had much important and new information and insights. We could use more persons like him in America today. Peter

Thanks, Peter. He was the first researcher I corresponded with, with an

interesting sidelight. I had ordered his first two WHITEWASH books, and

for weeks they still had not come, back in the early 70s. I wrote to him

again (long before email) saying I had not yet received the books. Within

a few days, the two books arrived, along with a three page letter in

Harold's inimatable style of ramblings, pecked out on an old typewriter

on his distinctive onion-skin Coc-de-Oro letterhead, with a long personal

mesage encouraging my research, and saying he had sent the books

several weeks earlier, and APOLOGIZING THAT THE FBI WAS INTERCEPTING

ALL OF HIS MAIL. About two or three weeks later, I RECEIVED THE ORIGINAL

SHIPMENT, WHICH OBVIOUSLY HAD BEEN SLICED OPEN AND CRUDELY

TAPED BACK TOGETHER! It too had a nice personal letter enclosed.

I wrote him offering to return the extra books, but he told me to keep them.

Over the years he did me several nice favors. Cranky...yes...but no doubt

about which side he was on.

Jack

[Michael Hogan]

Thanks Jack,

For an interesting piece of research history. I would imagine that back then, there was a real sense the case was going to be solved. There were plenty of fresh leads, and unlike now, so many witnesses and possible participants were still alive.

Mike Hogan

[Bernice Moore]

" The Dean" Harold Wiesberg was one of the early greats...

His words and accomplishments, emboldened generations that followed

His zeal and ardor for calling the investigations for what they were, "Lies"...

encouraged many who followed in his footsteps,

that few have ever come near filling.....

B.

The Washington Post; 2/23/2002; Adam Bernstein Washington Post Staff Writer

The Washington Post

02-23-2002

Harold Weisberg; Denounced Warren Commission Findings

Byline: Adam Bernstein Washington Post Staff Writer

Edition: FINAL

Section: Metro

Harold Weisberg, 88, a prolific author and persistent critic of the official

report that found a lone gunman responsible for the death of President

John F. Kennedy and who was often dubbed the dean of assassination researchers,

died Feb. 21 at his home in Frederick. He had a kidney ailment and sepsis.

Mr. Weisberg's career as the writer of about 10 published and roughly

35 unpublished books on the murders of Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther

King Jr. came last in a series of endeavors. He had been a journalist,

a labor investigator for then-Progressive Party Sen. Robert M. La Follette

Jr. (Wis.), an investigator for a World War II spy agency, a State Department

intelligence analyst and a prize-winning Montgomery County poultry farmer.

In an obsession that kept him in financial hardship during the last 35

years, Mr. Weisberg collected in his home more than 250,000 government

papers on the 1963 Kennedy assassination and scoured millions more at the

National Archives. He produced one of the earliest books about the president's

death, in 1965.

Mr. Weisberg also became a leading authority on the 1968 King killing

and was an investigator on behalf of James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty

to the crime but later recanted his story.

Mr. Weisberg came to believe that neither Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused

Kennedy gunman, nor Ray was responsible for the deaths of the prominent

leaders. He focused on what he considered the inadequacies of the government

investigations, specifically an improper probe of the available evidence.

But for all his work, he never found definitive answers.

He detested many other students of conspiracy, foremost filmmaker Oliver

Stone, whose 1991 "JFK" spun out all kinds of theories about the president's

death.

"To do a mishmash like this is out of love for the victim and respect

for history?" Mr. Weisberg said to The Washington Post. "I think people

who sell sex have more principle."

In contrast, Mr. Weisberg presented information he gleaned from government

investigative papers in an often dry manner -- even if that belied his

cover tag lines promising "the end of the cover-up -- official lies exposed.

Never such an investigation -- never such evidence!"

His first literary success was a self-published work called "Whitewash:

The Report on the Warren Report" (1965). After being turned down by several

publishers, he publicized the book himself and sold more than 30,000 copies.

Dell then published it and a follow up, "Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service

Cover Up" (both 1966).

Other books followed, including: "Oswald in New Orleans: Case of Conspiracy

with the C.I.A." (Canyon Books, 1967); "Martin Luther King: The Assassination"

(Carroll & Graf, 1993); and "Case Open: The Unanswered JFK Assassination

Questions" (Carroll & Graf, 1994).

Mr. Weisberg, a Philadelphia native, grew up in Wilmington, Del., the

son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He attended the University of Delaware

and then wrote articles for the Wilmington Morning News and the Sunday

supplement of the Philadelphia Ledger.

In the late 1930s, he worked for La Follette, who chaired a special Senate

investigating committee commonly called the La Follette Civil Liberties

Committee. Mr. Weisberg was sent to look at suspected labor-rights violations

in Harlan County, Ky.

During World War II, he served in the Army and the Office of Strategic

Services. He joined State after the war but left in the late 1940s. He

turned to farm life near Hyattsville with his wife, and they won prizes

for their poultry. They also were early participants in a Peace Corps program

called "Geese for Peace," in which the birds were shipped overseas to be

raised in poverty-stricken countries. He turned to writing full-time after

relinquishing farm life in the mid-1960s.

By that time, Mr. Weisberg's fascination with the Kennedy death was solidified.

In September 1964, the President's Commission on the Assassination of President

John F. Kennedy -- called the Warren Commission -- concluded that Oswald

was solely responsible for Kennedy's death.

Immediately Mr. Weisberg set to work on "Whitewash." His examination of

the report and its appendices showed what he considered "superficial and

immature" research into the possibility of a conspiracy or a different

assassin.

Mr. Weisberg, friends said, had a photographic memory and a single-minded

focus on his work that kept him occupied seven days a week. He once told

The Post that he worried he would be judged long after his death as "a

goddamn fool or Don Quixote."

Survivors include his wife, Lillian Stone Weisberg, whom he married in

1939, of Frederick; and two sisters.

Keywords: OB / OB

[Michael Hogan]

Nice Obit. Don Quixote maybe....fool - not at all! Question: Anyone know what became of his collection of documents etc.?

From Breach of Trust by Gerald McKnight:

Finally, without exaggeration, I would never have undertaken this work if it were not for Harold Weisberg. (1913-2002). Harold made available to me, as he did to all who asked, access to his voluminous records on the JFK assassination then located at his home in Frederick, Maryland. This archive is now housed at Hood College; I am currently the co-director, with Clay Oglivie, of this collection, which contains about one third of a million pages of government documents.

[Pat Speer]

Nice Obit. Don Quixote maybe....fool - not at all! Question: Anyone know what became of his collection of documents etc.?

From Breach of Trust by Gerald McKnight:

Finally, without exaggeration, I would never have undertaken this work if it were not for Harold Weisberg. (1913-2002). Harold made available to me, as he did to all who asked, access to his voluminous records on the JFK assassination then located at his home in Frederick, Maryland. This archive is now housed at Hood College; I am currently the co-director, with Clay Oglivie, of this collection, which contains about one third of a million pages of government documents.

Yes. Gerald McKnight, an esteemed member of this Forum, is the curator of Weisberg's documents.

There's one document in particular that is currently in my thoughts. In Post-Mortem, Weisberg writes of his efforts to gain access to the Government's working papers on its neutron-activation analysis tests. He was mostly tilting at windmills. Then one day in 75 a government lawyer went to Weisberg's lawyer Jim Lesar's office and handed over 400 pages of assorted stuff. Included in this stuff, according to Post-Mortem, were the working papers for a series of seven controls--tests where men fired rifles similar to Oswald's, and had paraffin casts made of their cheeks. In each instance, according to Weisberg, the paraffin cast was studied by NAA and in each instance gunpowder residue was detected on the right cheek of the rifleman in a much greater number than was detected on Oswald. To me these papers are incredibily important because they prove the FBI--which supervised the tests--knew it was doubtful Oswald fired a rifle, and yet kept this information from the public. That the WC took testimony on these tests, and failed to disclose the results of the controls, reflects that they too were involved in a knowing cover-up. These control tests are also important because unlike NAA tests of bullet lead, NAA test for gunpowder residue are still respected in the scientific community.

On the thread about his book Professor McKnight has informed us he will search for these control results. Hopefully we can get them online in the near future. Fingers crossed.

Edited August 19, 2006 by Pat Speer

[John Geraghty]

It is quite a shame that 'whitewash' is so expensive these days as I would early like to read them. My only experience of his work is the interview with him in 'The men who killed Kennedy'. I had an offer to go to the Weisburg archive in Maryland this year, but I haven't had the time.

I have been told that they are being put onto cd-rom, so that should be a good addition to any researchers collection.

I do know enough about Mr.Weisburg to know that he was on the money and was tireless in his efforts.

He is one of the people that should always be honored by the research community.

Just to clarify, Mike Hogan is a good guy and was not insinuating anything by starting this post.

All the best,

John Geraghty

[Paul Rigby]

On August 13, discussing the Zapruder film, Paul Rigby posted:

The really startling meaning of Weisberg’s passage is much more interesting: He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written: “It would have been better had Life been able to buy all the films exposed at Dealey Plaza that day…” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, pp.217/8).

In the same thread Rigby also wrote:

Now how did Weisberg, this highly intelligent man with war-time experience in the OSS, deal with this (Zapruder's) testimony? Did he deal with it competently and honestly? Not a bit of it.

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars........

And:

Of course, we don’t have to rely on my interpretation of Zapruder’s word alone, though you wouldn’t know it from Weisberg, who’s as anxious to suppress the confirmatory detail to follow as any Warren Commission shyster. (A challenge: name one newspaper article on the Zapruder film from the period November –December 1963 instanced by Weisberg. Some of us seek a free flow of information, while Weisy...?)

Is there a Forum member that agrees with Paul Rigby that Harold Weisberg was a witting servant of the CIA?

Astonishing - not a counter-argument in sight, just an appeal for reinforcements!

I accept the complement!

Paul

[Paul Rigby]

Just to clarify, Mike Hogan is a good guy and was not insinuating anything by starting this post.

All the best,

John Geraghty

John,

You seem to be, but he ain't, and he is.

The principle of getting your asset out front and steering the debate is as old as intelligence bureaucracies. The Agency didn't invent it, but it sure as hell used it post-November 22, 1963.

Here's Napoleon's chief spook, Joseph Fouche, on the subject:

“There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three.” [Hubert Cole. Fouche: The Unprincipled Patriot (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd., 1971), p.140, PRO, FO 27/63.]

I understand the resistance to examining the "deep politics" of the Warren Report's critics: I initially shared it. But facts, no matter how tough or disillusioning, must be faced. Weisberg's work is a trade-off. In return for some good stuff, he quietly shunts you in the wrong direction. For the most part, he does it with vigour, and no little chutzpah. As I've observed about him before, he was very bright - and thoroughly misleading.

Paul

[Michael Hogan]

Astonishing - not a counter-argument in sight, just an appeal for reinforcements!

I accept the complement!

Paul

Uh, Paul....don't flatter yourself. As I found out on another thread, you're really not worth arguing with.

When you got called for trying to have Zapruder's testimony both ways, you turned things really ugly.

To date, not one Forum member has agreed with your assessment of Weisberg, including people that met him, were helped by him, and spent time with him.

Keep on thinking you've got things all figured out. And Paul, the word is compliment.