David Talbot's New Book Brothers

[Pat Speer]

Before we grow hoarse from the shouting of HUZZAHS, let's remember that the attacks of Bugliosi and Posner are targeted on history -- future generations of victims who will be encouraged to believe that the conspiracy/LN debate is honorable, that the playing field is level, that legitimate arguments for the latter position have been posited.

Nothing less than the exposure of the Poseur and the Bug as enemy agents -- willful deceivers in service to the vilest political agendas; accessories after the fact to mass murder -- will suffice if we are to define, let alone attain, justice in the case of the conspiratorial murder of John Fitzgerald kennedy.

Charles

Charles, I respectfully disagree. After reading through Case Closed, and now Reclaiming History, I feel quite confident that both Posner and Bugliosi were not working for any THEY, but were instead representing what they thought was a logical viewpoint. Both men were former prosecutors with over-sized egos and both were anxious to close the case and prove to the world how much smarter than the rest of us they are. Bugliosi, after the 86 TV trial, got it in his head that the adversarial process of a courtroom was a quest for truth. He was excited by the fact that he could "reclaim history" from the conspiracy theorists by using his lawyer skills. Well, he was wrong. For one, people want evidence, not rhetoric. The shocking thing about the size of Bugliosi's book is not how big it is, but how little evidence is inside. He cherry-picks testimony with the worst of them. He shows the reader only the physical evidence he can twist to support his ARGUMENT.

Stephen White, the CBS writer responsible for the 67 CBS whitewash of the 64 Warren whitewash, nevertheless made an interesting point in his book on the creation of his whitewash. He noted that one of the Warren Commission's gravest errors was in selecting attorneys, particularly prosecuting attorneys, as their staff. Those trained in the adversarial process are not accustomed to searching for truth. They subconsciously side with their client and focus on representing their client--in this case President Johnson--as best they can. While Warren said their only client was the truth, this is obvious bs as the truth is as nebulous as a Richard Russell fart or an Allen Dulles burp. The attorneys were there to make sure the American people first and the world second knew that LBJ was a decent guy and was not involved in Kennedy's death. PERIOD. All the rest was self-deception. Anyhow, White, surprisingly, acknowledges this and suggests that the commission's staff should have consisted of men from a variety of backgrounds, including public defenders (if I remember correctly).

At one point, I was doing a lot of reading on cognitive psychology. On the website of a Stanford Professor i found a number of studies on how our view of reality is influenced by our role in society. One study that has always stuck with me was one in which law students were randomly selected to argue for the prosecution or the defense of an evenly matched case. Afterwards, they were asked what they believed REALLY happened. The prosecutors overwhelmingly believed the accused REALLY was guilty, and the defenders overwhelmingly believed their client REALLY was innocent. I believe Bugliosi--who has argued for conspiracy in the RFK case, and has argued that the Supreme Court was negligent in supporting the attacks on Clinton and crowing Bush king--simply saw the chance to argue this case and pore through all that delicious evidence against Oswald, as the mother lode. He just couldn't help himself, and along the way, deluded himself.

[Dawn Meredith]

Before we grow hoarse from the shouting of HUZZAHS, let's remember that the attacks of Bugliosi and Posner are targeted on history -- future generations of victims who will be encouraged to believe that the conspiracy/LN debate is honorable, that the playing field is level, that legitimate arguments for the latter position have been posited.

Nothing less than the exposure of the Poseur and the Bug as enemy agents -- willful deceivers in service to the vilest political agendas; accessories after the fact to mass murder -- will suffice if we are to define, let alone attain, justice in the case of the conspiratorial murder of John Fitzgerald kennedy.

Charles

Charles, I respectfully disagree. After reading through Case Closed, and now Reclaiming History, I feel quite confident that both Posner and Bugliosi were not working for any THEY, but were instead representing what they thought was a logical viewpoint. Both men were former prosecutors with over-sized egos and both were anxious to close the case and prove to the world how much smarter than the rest of us they are. Bugliosi, after the 86 TV trial, got it in his head that the adversarial process of a courtroom was a quest for truth. He was excited by the fact that he could "reclaim history" from the conspiracy theorists by using his lawyer skills. Well, he was wrong. For one, people want evidence, not rhetoric. The shocking thing about the size of Bugliosi's book is not how big it is, but how little evidence is inside. He cherry-picks testimony with the worst of them. He shows the reader only the physical evidence he can twist to support his ARGUMENT.

Stephen White, the CBS writer responsible for the 67 CBS whitewash of the 64 Warren whitewash, nevertheless made an interesting point in his book on the creation of his whitewash. He noted that one of the Warren Commission's gravest errors was in selecting attorneys, particularly prosecuting attorneys, as their staff. Those trained in the adversarial process are not accustomed to searching for truth. They subconsciously side with their client and focus on representing their client--in this case President Johnson--as best they can. While Warren said their only client was the truth, this is obvious bs as the truth is as nebulous as a Richard Russell fart or an Allen Dulles burp. The attorneys were there to make sure the American people first and the world second knew that LBJ was a decent guy and was not involved in Kennedy's death. PERIOD. All the rest was self-deception. Anyhow, White, surprisingly, acknowledges this and suggests that the commission's staff should have consisted of men from a variety of backgrounds, including public defenders (if I remember correctly).

At one point, I was doing a lot of reading on cognitive psychology. On the website of a Stanford Professor i found a number of studies on how our view of reality is influenced by our role in society. One study that has always stuck with me was one in which law students were randomly selected to argue for the prosecution or the defense of an evenly matched case. Afterwards, they were asked what they believed REALLY happened. The prosecutors overwhelmingly believed the accused REALLY was guilty, and the defenders overwhelmingly believed their client REALLY was innocent. I believe Bugliosi--who has argued for conspiracy in the RFK case, and has argued that the Supreme Court was negligent in supporting the attacks on Clinton and crowing Bush king--simply saw the chance to argue this case and pore through all that delicious evidence against Oswald, as the mother lode. He just couldn't help himself, and along the way, deluded himself.

Interesting argument Pat, BUT I don't buy it. I remember in law school having to do these kinds of experiments, like representing the view which was the opposite to how you really believed, as a tool to sharpen and learn one's skills. BUT that was- like the 86 trial- a mock situation. I don't think Posner or Bugliosi believe this trash for one moment. If the CIA has a ton of media whores don't you think they have writers of books as well? (And I mean "CIA" in the generic sense). Posner just reeks of being bought and sold. I have seen him on tv countless times and that he is dirty is the strongest thing he projects- to me.

I agree that DA's mostly DO believe a client is guilty- in fact their ethical duty is to justice, not winning. Sadly I have seen DA's who don't care about justice....And defense attorneys have no choice. If appointed or retained by a client, what the attorney THINKS is irrelevent. You defend the client. Or as my husband calls it "You defend the Constitution". Many of my colleagues don't even ask the did you do it question. (I always do).

So of course they "cherry pick", but Posner especially also out and out fabricates, just like the WC ers did. You give these pigs too much credit for having ethics, imho.

Dawn

ps This should be on the Bugliosi thread, not David Talbot's.

[William Kelly]

Has anyone else listend to this iterview?

If so I'd like to hear from them.

Thanks,

BK

David Talbot on the Kennedys' 'Hidden History'</H3>

Fresh Air from WHYY, May 24, 2007 · Writer and editor David Talbot founded the online journal Salon.com; he was editor-in-chief from 1995 to 2005, and still serves as board chairman of Salon Media Group. He's written a book about Robert and John F. Kennedy called Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.

Edited May 25, 2007 by William Kelly

[David Talbot]

William, glad you liked the Fresh Air show. I thought Davies' questions were very good -- he told me before the show that he had read 1,000 Kennedy books. I'm sure he was exaggerating, but he obviously was very knowledgeable. And yes, the show had an instant impact on the book's Amazon rank. I too can't help but see the sales of Brothers -- vs. Bugliosi's sales -- as some sort of cultural referendum. I agree with Nathaniel that the first wave of support for the book came from informed people like all of you. And now that the book has received some national media attention, it's spreading outwards.

I'm so sick of these Lone Nut ideologues dominating the bestseller lists and the media dialogue. I don't know if, as Dawn says, Bugliosi is a cynical huckster or as Pat suggests, simply a lawyer who was given the job of defending Oswald on TV and is doing his lawyerly job. But -- from what I've read so far in his book -- Bugliosi does exactly what he accuses Posner of doing. (B's inflated ego won't allow another anti-conspiracy critic to occupy his turf, so he feels compelled to trash Posner in his book.) He omits and distorts and, yes, cherry-picks. Jeff Morley and I want to debate Bugliosi and the partner of his choice onstage somewhere. (I guess it won't be Posner.) Stay tuned.

And Dawn, don't get me started on Dallek. These respected mainstream historians drive me up the wall when it comes to the JFK assassination. If you read his JFK book, you see that Dallek conveniently draws the curtain on Kennedy's life right after the shots are fired. He makes no attempt to sort through the historical record and come to some informed conclusion. So why is he now suddenly an assassination expert?

The blunt truth is that mainstream journalists and scholars continue to shun the Kennedy assassination as a legitimate field of interest. They are scared to death of being tainted as conspiracy nuts. The American people are light years ahead of the intellectual elites on this one.

[Anthony Thorne]

David's interview from FRESH AIR was a good one, and I'd imagine that most people who heard it would have been made quite curious to read the book and learn more. The transcript is below.

As a note, Bugliosi's book is currently at #33 on the Amazon nonfiction bestseller list (though we all know it should be in the fiction category alongside Harry Potter). David's book is in the top 10.

.................................

Dave Davies: This is Fresh Air. I’m Dave Davies, senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, sitting in for Terry Gross. Few subjects in American history have been as relentlessly scrutinized as the Kennedy assassination, but a new book by my guest, journalist David Talbot, looks at the question of whether Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy in Dallas from a unique perspective - that of the President’s brother, Robert Kennedy. Talbot says it’s clear Bobby Kennedy never believed Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in Dallas, and Talbot’s book argues his suspicions were well founded. It focuses on the Kennedy brother’s partnership in the White House, and contends they were constantly undermined and threatened by forces in the military, the CIA, the Mafia and the Cuban exile community. The administration was, Talbot argues, a government at war with itself. David Talbot worked for years as a writer and editor in several publications, and is the founder of the online magazine, Salon.com. His new book is BROTHERS – THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE KENNEDY YEARS.

David Talbot, welcome back to Fresh Air. You open this book with an account of Bobby Kennedy’s movements and reaction in November 1963 to his brother’s shooting in Dallas. Did Bobby Kennedy have an immediate belief or theory about who had killed President Kennedy?

David Talbot: Yes, literally immediately. That afternoon he happened to be at his home in Virginia, Hickory Hill, the old Civil War estate where he and his family lived, and it was J. Edgar Hoover of all people who phoned him that day - his arch-enemy, the head of the FBI - to tell him that his brother had been shot, and then soon after that his brother had died. Bobby immediately, we know from the phone calls and conversations he’s having that day from his home, immediately suspects that Lee Harvey Oswald is not the complete story, and he immediately is looking into the shadowy war against Castro that is being run by the CIA, (and has enlisted gangsters in its attempts to kill Castro), as the source of the plot against his own brother.

DD: Well then, of course, Bobby had made a lot of enemies in the underworld for many years by investigating the mob and the teamsters union. Did he do anything to investigate the crime, Bobby Kennedy?

DT: He did, and this is the great drama of the story that I tell, because publicly what Bobby is saying, of course, is that he accepts the official version of Dallas, the Warren Report, but privately it’s a very different story. Privately, he’s a man on fire to get to the bottom of the story from that afternoon on, and he’s looking himself into various leads, he’s using surrogates, a former FBI agent named Walter Sheridan, who was his right-hand investigator, a number of people on his staff who he trusted, to pursue every lead, and literally he goes from New Orleans, to Chicago, to Dallas, to Mexico, to Moscow either himself or using these surrogates, these aides to pursue every lead that he can.

DD: You mentioned that he dispatched someone to Moscow. What was that all about?

DT: Well, that’s a remarkable story. This is the week after the assassination of President Kennedy. He goes to a close family friend named William Walton. Now, Walton is a very interesting character in his own right. He was a Time magazine war correspondent during World War II, knew the eldest Kennedy brother, Joe Kennedy, before his death in the war. He’d gotten to know Jack Kennedy as a young congressman and Jackie Kennedy in Georgetown before they moved into the White House, and he was used as a confidential emissary and a political operative by the Kennedy family for a number of years. He’d been due to go to Moscow a week after the assassination as part of JFK’s efforts towards détente with the Soviet Union. He was going to lead an artistic exchange mission to Moscow. He thought the mission would be cancelled after Dallas, but Bobby and Jackie Kennedy both go to Walton and say no, go ahead with this mission and take a confidential message from us, the Kennedy family, to the Soviet government. He does that, and he meets with a Soviet agent named Georgei Bulshakov, who both Jack and Bobby had come to trust while he was an agent in Washington. They used him as a back channel courier to Khrushchev in the Kremlin, and Walton has dinner with Bulshakov in Moscow and he tells them a remarkable thing. He says, “We don’t blame you, the Soviets, for the assassination”, even though Oswald is being portrayed in the press at that point as a Communist agent. “We know that it was a domestic high level political conspiracy that killed the President, and Bobby Kennedy intends to run for President at some point, and when he does, if he succeeds, he will resume the policies of President Kennedy’s – of détente towards the Soviet Union.” Well I find this a stunning story, because this is the height of the Cold War, and at this point it indicates that Bobby Kennedy and the family are placing more trust in the Soviet government than in their own government.

DD: Publicly he endorsed the findings of the Warren Commission, that Oswald acted alone, right?

DT: That’s right.

DD: And I was struck by one fascinating detail you discovered, that Kenny O’Donnell, who was the special assistant to President Kennedy (who was actually played by Kevin Costner in the movie THIRTEEN DAYS), he was in the motorcade in Dallas, and felt strongly that President Kennedy took shots from in front, from the Grassy Knoll, not from behind where Oswald’s sniper’s perch was, but Bobby Kennedy instructed him to lie to the Warren Commission.

DT: Well, that’s what I suspect. It’s a very revealing story. As you say, Kenny O’Donnell is riding 10 feet behind the President’s limousine in Dallas with another White House aide named Dave Powers, who’s a part of the Kennedy’s so called ‘Irish Mafia’ - very loyal aides - and both of these men, Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers had been World War II veterans. They knew the sound of gunfire, and they distinctly heard gunfire, they later said, (and they told the FBI this, and they told Bobby Kennedy this), both from the Grassy Knoll area, as well as from behind, as you say the Texas Book depository. Well, of course, that immediately indicates there was a conspiracy if you have two sharpshooters. But, Kenny O’Donnell, I think, was prepared to tell the truth to the Warren Commission, as Dave Powers was, but I do believe it was not just the FBI who hold him that he didn’t want to go there – which they [the FBI] did – but it was probably Bobby, because I think Kenny O’Donnell was so loyal to Bobby that he would have taken orders only from him, and at this point Bobby Kennedy has determined he has no power, no official power, even though he’s still Attorney General, to pursue this crime. The new President, Lyndon Johnson, loathes him. The head of the FBI, which is taking the lead in the investigation into the assassination, J. Edgar Hoover, also has a poisonous relationship with Bobby Kennedy. His power to investigate the crime begins to evaporate from the moment his brother dies. He knows that he has to wait and bide his time, which is what he tells people, he tells his family that weekend in the White House, a very dramatic scene where he begins to confide in family members who are gathering for the funeral of the President. “This is what’s happened, it’s a high level plot, it involves elements of the Government, but we can’t do anything until we get back to the White House, until we have the machinery of the Federal Government to investigate this”.

DD: Let me just go back to that. You’re saying that Bobby Kennedy, you know for a fact that he told members of his family the weekend after the assassination that this was a conspiracy. How do we know that?

DT: We know this from people who were in the White House that weekend, including Peter Lawford, who was the President’s brother-in-law. Peter Lawford is dead, I interviewed a close friend of his who reported this to me, and we know from other people that Bobby is saying the same thing during that period.

DD: Well, I want to talk about some of the events in the Kennedy Administration that gave rise to the suspicions about the assassination. President Kennedy faced a huge test, a disaster early on, and that was the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. This was of course, for those too young to recall, a CIA-backed invasion of Cuban exiles who were going to overthrow Castro, which quickly turned into a disaster when the invasion force was pinned down on a Cuban beach, and there was enormous pressure from within the Cuban community and the military on Kennedy to bring US military forces into the conflict, in effect to join in an invasion of the island. He resisted, and refused, and of course the invasion force was taken captive and the whole thing was a big fiasco. What was the effect of Kennedy’s reputation among the military and intelligence services? How was it affected by the Bay of Pigs disaster?

DT: Well, I think it’s at this point in the Kennedy administration, and it’s quite early on, it’s only a matter of a few months into the administration in April 1961, it’s at this point when I believe the government cracked, that you essentially have a government at war with itself from that point on because Kennedy’s own national security apparatus now decides that Kennedy is weak and can’t be trusted. They had thought, as you say, that he would have gone in and reinforced the belegured Cuban exiles pinned down on the beaches, that he would have brought massive US military power to bear, and indeed, I believe they knew that the invasion itself, the initial invasion would be a fiasco, and they thought they would be able to sandbag Kennedy into sending in the full might of the US military. Kennedy came to that same conclusion himself and he was enraged. He vowed to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds, while the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, the legendary spymaster and others began muttering darkly among themselves and the military that Kennedy was in over his head, he couldn’t be trusted, he wasn’t the leader that America needed.

DD: Well, let’s talk about some of these ranking officials in the military. You know, in 2007 it’s a little hard to recall kind of the intensity of that Cold War period, the threat of nuclear war hanging over the nation. Were there military leaders who seriously wanted to provoke a new nuclear confrontation with the Soviets?

DT: Yes there were, in particular the head of the Airforce, General Curtis Lemay. He was a World War II hero. Robert McNamara, Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, had worked under him in Japan during the war, and Curtis Lemay did indeed feel that the country not only could, but should launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. The United States at that point had overwhelming nuclear superiority, and he felt if you’re going to fight a nuclear war with the Soviets - and he felt it was inevitable - that you should fight it sooner, rather than later when the Soviets would begin to catch up with the United States. In fact he had this debate with Defense Secretary McNamara. He felt that you could win a nuclear war if you had more nuclear weapons than your enemy at the end of the holocaust, whereas McNamara argued that you had to take into account the casualties, and of course the devastation that would ensue.

DD: You also write that a lot of the military structure, not just Curtis Lemay, but a lot of people in the military held really hard-line anti-Communist views, and openly criticized the President as an appeaser. I mean, this is sort of shocking for those of us who are used to thinking of the military as being under civilian control. It was a different world then.

DT: A very different world. The US military was very politicized, there were political rallies, anti-Communist rallies held in a number of places throughout the country in which active duty military officers would participate. General Edwin Walker, who was a very respected military commander in West Germany at the time, distributed John Birch far-right material to his troops in the ranks. He advised them how to vote in American elections, and he considered all liberal democratic candidates Socialists, and treasonous. This man finally was forced out of the military, and became an arch-enemy of the Kennedy’s, and campaigned against the Kennedy’s all around the country. But the mutinous atmosphere within the American military became so alarming to JFK himself, that at one point he approached a friend in Hollywood, John Frankenheimer, the director, and he urged him to make a movie version of the best-selling novel SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, which of course was about an attempted military coup in Washington. He does this, I believe, not only as a warning shot across his General’s bow, but also to try and awaken the American people to the threat, the growing threat against democracy at that point.

DD: Did Kennedy truly believe a military coup was possible?

DT: I believe he was concerned about it. You know, it’s remarkable when you see transcripts of conversations in the White House, and of course he had a taping system so we have some of these conversations verbatim, and conversations he had with close friends, how often the subject of assassination or coup, the violent specter of the end of his own Presidency would come up in these conversations. I don’t believe…

DD: Give us an example.

DT: Well, one day he’s sailing with an old friend, Paul Fay, who he’d appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Fay has been reading SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, the book, and brings it up and says “Do you think something like that could ever happen here, Jack?” And JFK, instead of just dismissing it out of hand, says “Well, you know if there were a shock to the system”, something like the Bay of Pigs, “..people in the military might begin to wonder about the President, particularly if the President’s young and untested..”, which of course JFK was, “..then if there’s another shock after that, and maybe possibly a third one, yes, there might be elements within the military..” he tells his friend, “..that would move against the White House at that point out of a sense of national duty.” I believe he felt… JFK had very finely tuned political radar. He’d picked up on these tremors within his own government, and I believe in conversations like this, he is expressing those concerns.

DD: So, what you have is a situation where you have this hotbed of angry anti-Castro Cubans in South Florida who regard Kennedy as a traitor for not supporting them at the Bay of Pigs, you have CIA operatives, rogues who were doing things without the knowledge of the government, in league with the Mafia, who have their own reasons to hate Kennedy. So, you have three forces that are angry enough at President Kennedy to give rise to suspicion, once President Kennedy is assassinated, that they might have been behind it, and there are lots of fascinating connections we can’t go into here among a lot of the players. But, I have to ask you one thing, you know, mob historians who followed the Mafia, one of the things that they tell us is that they generally want to operate and make their money, and over the years they’ve historically not killed cops or prosecutors. That was off limits. What makes us believe that they would actually order a hit on a President?

DT: Well, let me just say, you know, very emphatically, I don’t believe the Mafia were the ultimate intellectual architects behind this crime, behind the assassination of President Kennedy, and nor did, I believe, Bobby feel that way. He was looking more at the CIA and elements of his own government. But I do believe the Mafia played a role, and I do believe Bobby Kennedy thought that as well. You know, within 24hrs of Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub operator who shot Lee Harvey Oswald down on national television, within 24hrs of that shocking crime, Bobby has investigators looking into who Jack Ruby is, and they report back to him immediately that he’s not just a patriotic American who felt terrible about what had happened to the President, and was shooting Oswald out of his sense of grief. This is a man who was basically a low-level Mafia errand boy, and Bobby Kennedy knew this. Bobby Kennedy tells his Press Secretary years later, Frank Mankiewiz, “When I saw the phone records of all the people Jack Ruby was calling before Dallas, before the assassination, it looked like my witness list for the Senate Rackets Committee.” So, Bobby’s putting together how the Mafia played a role in it, but my sense is that he believed it was a high-level political plot that had utilised the Mafia in some way to carry out certain roles within the operation.

DD: You know, most, if not all of the players who would have first-hand information about the assassination are now dead. Is there fresh source material that’s still hidden, that might be mined for new clues about the assassination?

DT: Yes there is, and it began actually in the 1970’s with the Church Committee investigation into the CIA, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations later in the 70’s. Many of the areas that Bobby Kennedy was looking into were stirred up again by these investigations. The CIA’s war on Castro, the gangsters, militant exiles, and a number of the people who played a role in those investigations, who came under suspicion, we could learn more about today. As a result of a bill that was passed in 1992 because of the Oliver Stone film JFK, thousands of government documents were released, but the CIA continues to sit on many of these documents, and in fact they’re going to court this Summer against a Washington Post reporter named Jeff Morley, who’s played a heroic role in trying to get to the bottom of the case. He’s trying to get the agency to release records on some of these men, in particular a man named George Joannides, who we now know was tied to Lee Harvey Oswald in the early 60’s before the assassination.

DD: Joannides was a CIA man, right?

DT: That’s right. Joannides was the CIA official in charge of a Cuban student exile group that was tangling with Oswald, and had some mysterious interaction with him. We know that another CIA official, David Phillips, before he died, intimated that he was one of the CIA’s handlers for Lee Harvey Oswald. So, it goes on and on. Howard Hunt, who recently died, the legendary Watergate burglar who was, again, part of the CIA’s war on Castro, he revealed to his eldest son before he died that he was asked to come to a meeting at a CIA safe house in Miami where the plot to kill the President was discussed. There’s a lot of curious things about this, and there’s no good reason for them to continue to sit on this, this is American history and Americans have a right to their history, and I hope that they finally see that these documents should be released.

DD: Well, David Talbot, thanks so much for speaking with us.

DT: Thank you Dave.

[John Simkin]

I have added two more threads on David's book:

The Military Industrial Congressional Complex

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10078

Grant Stockdale

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10079

[Dawn Meredith]

Has anyone else listend to this iterview?

If so I'd like to hear from them.

Thanks,

BK

David Talbot on the Kennedys' 'Hidden History'</H3>

Fresh Air from WHYY, May 24, 2007 · Writer and editor David Talbot founded the online journal Salon.com; he was editor-in-chief from 1995 to 2005, and still serves as board chairman of Salon Media Group. He's written a book about Robert and John F. Kennedy called Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.

BK: I'd love to hear it, but I get an error message, because I don't have java script. And when I try to download java it does not work.

David: I did read Dallek's book when it first came out and the way he treated the assassination greatly angered me. Then later he was one of the "three historians" on the History Channel to trash my friend Barr McClellan's character. They did not even bother attempting to deal with the substance of the three censored Men Who Killed Kennedy shows, or Barr's book. Aside from "no conspiracy". So I can't stand Dallek and, yes, he's the new conspiracy expert.

Has your agent contacted any of the cable news guys who might give you some coverage? Say Keith O? ( Forget the networks, they are steeped in the LN lie.)

Dawn

[Charles Drago]

Dawn,

I'm afraid that, for all the nobility and courage Olbermann brings to his nighly broadcasts' commentaries on Bush and his war criminal masters, he fails miserably when it comes to the subject of the Kennedy assassination.

Gerald Posner remains one of Olbermann's favorite "experts," one whom he treats with nauseating deference each and every time he appears on "Countdown."

I know. It hurts.

Charles

[Dawn Meredith]

Dawn,

I'm afraid that, for all the nobility and courage Olbermann brings to his nighly broadcasts' commentaries on Bush and his war criminal masters, he fails miserably when it comes to the subject of the Kennedy assassination.

Gerald Posner remains one of Olbermann's favorite "experts," one whom he treats with nauseating deference each and every time he appears on "Countdown."

I know. It hurts.

Charles

Damn! I was afraid of that. I've never heard him cover conspiracy and love him on the war and Bush.

So maybe it's time he is educated. Though I fear that anyone on tv has an unspoken agreement to stick with the party line on all things conspiracy. So much for our "free press". Beyond disgusted.

Dawn

[Myra Bronstein]

David's interview from FRESH AIR was a good one, and I'd imagine that most people who heard it would have been made quite curious to read the book and learn more. The transcript is below.

As a note, Bugliosi's book is currently at #33 on the Amazon nonfiction bestseller list (though we all know it should be in the fiction category alongside Harry Potter). David's book is in the top 10.

...

Oh my, David's book is stable but Bug's dropped to #34...

http://tinyurl.com/29yldk

As an aside, while I was gloating over the success of Brothers, I came across this:

http://tinyurl.com/2bw9vd

"Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Hardcover) by Jeremy Scahill"

If anyone read it, please feel free to create a separate thread to discuss it 'cause I sure am interested...

[Myra Bronstein]

Dawn,

I'm afraid that, for all the nobility and courage Olbermann brings to his nighly broadcasts' commentaries on Bush and his war criminal masters, he fails miserably when it comes to the subject of the Kennedy assassination.

Gerald Posner remains one of Olbermann's favorite "experts," one whom he treats with nauseating deference each and every time he appears on "Countdown."

I know. It hurts.

Charles

Damn! I was afraid of that. I've never heard him cover conspiracy and love him on the war and Bush.

So maybe it's time he is educated. Though I fear that anyone on tv has an unspoken agreement to stick with the party line on all things conspiracy. So much for our "free press". Beyond disgusted.

Dawn

As much as I adore Olberman, this info does make me wonder if he's an establishment lefty like Chomsky, The Nation, and Sir Seymour of Langley.

Someone's view on President Kennedy's assassination is the most important litmus test.

[Myra Bronstein]

...

Jeff Morley and I want to debate Bugliosi and the partner of his choice onstage somewhere. (I guess it won't be Posner.) Stay tuned.

...

Oh David, I was thinking of asking you precisely that--if there is any chance of a debate with Bugliosi.

I SO hope that happens.

I can just see it on youtube now...

[Myra Bronstein]

...

DD: And I was struck by one fascinating detail you discovered, that Kenny O’Donnell, who was the special assistant to President Kennedy (who was actually played by Kevin Costner in the movie THIRTEEN DAYS), he was in the motorcade in Dallas, and felt strongly that President Kennedy took shots from in front, from the Grassy Knoll, not from behind where Oswald’s sniper’s perch was, but Bobby Kennedy instructed him to lie to the Warren Commission.

DT: Well, that’s what I suspect. It’s a very revealing story. As you say, Kenny O’Donnell is riding 10 feet behind the President’s limousine in Dallas with another White House aide named Dave Powers, who’s a part of the Kennedy’s so called ‘Irish Mafia’ - very loyal aides - and both of these men, Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers had been World War II veterans. They knew the sound of gunfire, and they distinctly heard gunfire, they later said, (and they told the FBI this, and they told Bobby Kennedy this), both from the Grassy Knoll area, as well as from behind, as you say the Texas Book depository. Well, of course, that immediately indicates there was a conspiracy if you have two sharpshooters. But, Kenny O’Donnell, I think, was prepared to tell the truth to the Warren Commission, as Dave Powers was, but I do believe it was not just the FBI who hold him that he didn’t want to go there – which they [the FBI] did – but it was probably Bobby, because I think Kenny O’Donnell was so loyal to Bobby that he would have taken orders only from him, and at this point Bobby Kennedy has determined he has no power, no official power, even though he’s still Attorney General, to pursue this crime.

...

If this is true it really bothers me.

In general I don't like to blame the victim, which Bobby certainly was.

But he was also a public official, and the American people were also victims, and we deserve to know the truth.

If he actually helped conceal the truth by influencing testimony to the WC then I'm seriously disappointed in him.

He had no right to decide for us what we should know.

Something that both Bobby and Al Gore failed to realize is that when there is a coup, the best opportunity they'll have to fight

it is right then when it's the center of attention and the plotters haven't yet solidified power. In each case they were no doubt

concerned about blood in the streets. But there will be more blood and suffering, long term, when the inevitable war for profit is waged. Bobby and Al seemed to think that they'd be able to work within the system to restore a legit government, when the

system was already corrupted by the plotters. Once the plotters have power they won't willingly give it back just because it's an election year. People don't steal elections to do nice things or to preserve democracy.

They made the exact same mistake.

[Charles Drago]

Dawn,

I'm afraid that, for all the nobility and courage Olbermann brings to his nighly broadcasts' commentaries on Bush and his war criminal masters, he fails miserably when it comes to the subject of the Kennedy assassination.

Gerald Posner remains one of Olbermann's favorite "experts," one whom he treats with nauseating deference each and every time he appears on "Countdown."

I know. It hurts.

Charles

Damn! I was afraid of that. I've never heard him cover conspiracy and love him on the war and Bush.

So maybe it's time he is educated. Though I fear that anyone on tv has an unspoken agreement to stick with the party line on all things conspiracy. So much for our "free press". Beyond disgusted.

Dawn

As much as I adore Olberman, this info does make me wonder if he's an establishment lefty like Chomsky, The Nation, and Sir Seymour of Langley.

Someone's view on President Kennedy's assassination is the most important litmus test.

Myra,

In re the litmus test issue: I could not more wholeheartedly agree.

If I may write this again, for emphasis: Anyone with reasonable access to the evidence in this case who does not conclude conspiracy is cognitively impaired and/or complicit in the crime.

In my Constitutionally-protected opinion:

Dallek -- impaired.

Posner -- complicit.

Bugliosi -- both.

Olbermann -- earns the benefit of the doubt; no reasonable access -- YET.

How can a scholar who publicly pontificates on the JFK murder without first having researched the issue with full intellectual vigor be trusted on ANY subject?

Charles

[J. Raymond Carroll]

...

DD: And I was struck by one fascinating detail you discovered .... Bobby Kennedy instructed him [O'Donnell] to lie to the Warren Commission.

DT: Well, that’s what I suspect. It’s a very revealing story.

...

If this is true it really bothers me.

When you gaze into the abyss, Nietzsche warns, remember that the abyss is always gazing into you. Assassination research is hazardous to your mental health, and severe precautions should be taken.

David Talbot has thrown caution to the winds in lending his powerful voice to something that he admits is nothing more than a suspicion.

I submit that Ken O'Donnell's cowardice and conformity before the Warren Commission can be adequately explained without the need for speculation about RFK as Deus Ex Machina.

What strikes me about the interview (Thank you, thank you, Mr. Thorne for posting the transcript) is the way the interviewer went directly after what seemed to him to be the Achilles Heel that David had "exposed". This guy had read an assassination book for every day that JFK was president, and his first order of business with David was to see if he could score a headline like this one:

RFK SUBORNS PERJURY IN HIS BROTHER'S MURDER.

DAVID TALBOT's VIEW OF BROTHER'S ROLE