Source: Texas Attorney-General Waggoner Carr's Warren Commission evidence
Repost
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> Subject: [CHOMSKY] Chomsky and JFK
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> This attachment comes from someone who believes Chomsky is an establishment
> lapdog. I don't agree, but invite comments (I tried to send this several days
> ago and it was never posted. I'm beginning to fear censorship, even on the
> Chomsky mail list!)
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> Subject: [CTRL] Chomsky on JFK 1
> To: CTRL@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
> In-Reply-To: <33B2D836.1C8F@cdsnet.net>
> =0D
> Alexander Cockburn and Noam Chomsky vs. JFK: A Study in
> Misinformation
> =0D
> INTRODUCTION
> =0D
> In early 1992, after the release of Oliver Stone's film JFK
> a media thundercloud erupted.
> =0D
> After early attacks in mainstream media like the Chicago
> Tribune and Washington Post, many other alternative media of
> both the left and right began to run articles on the film
> including outlets like "The Village Voice", for which
> Alexander Cockburn used to write. To the surprise of many,
> when some of these supposed leftist media organs did chime
> in, they savaged the film as wildly as the mainstream press
> did. These outlets were, specifically, The Progressive, Z
> magazine, and The Nation. The writers were, respectively,
> the late Erwin Knoll, Noam Chomsky, and Alexander Cockburn.
> Chomsky then wrote a book, Rethinking Camelot to
> specifically attack one of the main theses of JFK, namely
> that Kennedy had intended to withdraw from Vietnam by 1965.
> =0D
> But of the three, by far the most bitter and vicious
> polemics about the film were by Cockburn in three pieces in
> The Nation dated January 6/13, March 9, and May 18, 1992.
> The first piece was entitled "J.F.K. and JFK" in which he
> attacked not only the film, but the publishers of the book
> by Jim Garrison on which it was based, author Peter Dale
> Scott_who originated the Kennedy withdrawal thesis_and John
> Kennedy himself.
> =0D
> The next two issues cited were Cockburn's response to
> several of scores of letters The Nation received in response
> to the original article. Cockburns's response to the first
> group of letters was less than detached and academic. He
> said that Scott and author John Newman ("JFK and Vietnam"
> and an advisor on the film) suffered from "fantasies" and
> that Scott's letter was basically "silly" and showed
> "evidence of a rather pathetic persecution mania"(P. 319).
> =0D
> But perhaps the worst performance by Cockburn was in the
> last round of letters. He responded to correspondence by
> Oliver Stone, John Newman and Philip Green. He accused Stone
> of being a fascist (p. 678), said Newman's letter was a
> "confession of defeat" and called him "a very bad historian"
> (p. 678)_even though in the earlier issue he had called his
> tome "a serious book" (January 6/13 p. 7). He called Green's
> letter "the silliest of the lot" and full of "self-regarding
> blather" (p. 678). He concluded by accusing Garrisonand his
> publisher, and Stone and his producer, of being in it for
> the money. Not satisfied, he even stated that his colleague
> at The Nation, Chris Hitchens, of liking the film solely
> because he wanted to sell a script to Stone (p. 320). We
> should also add here that he characterized the Warren
> Commission critics as mostly "conspiracy mongers" who were
> either "imbeciles or mountebanks" and that the Warren
> Commission members and staff came to conclusions "more
> plausible and soundly based than is commonly supposed."
> Cockburn's trust of the Warren Commission was exhibited when
> he gave assistant counsel Wesley Liebeler a nearly three
> page interview in the March issue to defend the Commission's
> main conclusions.
> =0D
> Since Cockburn and Chomsky are good friends and colleagues,
> it is fair to say they communicated and compared notes
> during the many months the controversy raged. Now Cockburn
> has reprinted edited versions of some of his pieces plus
> another separate piece on Oswald in his new book "The Golden
> Age is in Us." These two hold an exalted status on the left
> and many progressives implicitly trust them even though
> neither has done any specific, extended work on the issues
> of the Kennedy assassination, Kennedy's intent to withdraw
> from Vietnam, the Garrison investigation, or the Kennedy
> presidency. We feel that its time to question that status in
> regard to the past writings, and the emerging record, and
> then let the reader decide who is closer to the truth: the
> film or its debunkers.
> =0D
> Point #1 The Kennedy Presidency
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation 3/9/92, p. 318
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> ". . .JFK always acted within the terms of those [economic,
> military, intelligence] institutions and that against the
> script's assertions, there is no evidence to the contrary."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> In 1962, Kennedy brokered an agreement between the major
> steel corporations, including U.S. Steel, and their labor
> unions. The unions would hold off on a wage increase if the
> steel companies would not raise prices, which Kennedy felt
> would cause an inflationary spiral in the economy. On April
> 10th, four days after U.S. Steel signed the agreement, Roger
> Blough, chairman of the board, handed Kennedy a memo saying
> that U.S. Steel was going to break the agreement and raise
> prices. Within 24 hours Kennedy launched investigations by
> the FTC and Justice Department into collusion and price
> rigging by the steel companies. He threatened to break
> Pentagon contracts with U.S. Steel. In a week, Attorney
> General Robert Kennedy began a grand jury probe and
> announced subpoenas for documents held by U.S. Steel.
> President Kennedy then announced a press conference and
> delivered the following remarks:
> =0D
> ". . .the American people will find it hard , as I do, to
> accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel
> executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds
> their sense of public responsibility can show such utter
> contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans. "
> =0D
> In less than ten days the steel companies capitulated. Later
> on, when prices were raised in 1963, Bobby Kennedy
> instituted a lawsuit against the steel companies.
> =0D
> These actions followed Kennedy's criminal probe of the
> electric companies in 1961 in which he actually jailed the
> companies' executives for price fixing. It parallels his
> probe of the Rockefeller-controlled Freeport Sulphur, Hannah
> Mining and other mineral companies in 1962 and 1963 who had
> overly lucrative deals stockpiling armament materiel at the
> public's expense. In other areas Kennedy opposed the
> Pentagon with his nuclear test ban treaty (the CIA and Joint
> Chiefs worked against him in Congressional hearings).
> =0D
> He opposed the same groups at the Bay of Pigs when he
> refused to launch an invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis
> where he refused to launch air strikes against the missile
> silos. This last, according to one commentator, sealed his
> fate with Wall Street since by calling off an invasion he
> removed the last possibility of reversing Castro's
> nationalization of American industries.
> =0D
> Sources: Thy Will be Done by Colby and Dennett p. 401
> Battling Wall Street by Don Gibson pp. 10, 11, 14
> The Burden and the Glory ed. Allan Nevins p. 195
> =0D
> Point #2 John Kennedy's Foreign Policy
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation 1/6-13/92, p. 318
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "The real JFK backed a military coup in Guatemala. . . . to
> keep out Arevalo. . ."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> In 1966, 3 years after the coup, columnist Georgie Anne
> Geyer, who enjoyed access to the intelligence community,
> reported that "top sources within the Kennedy
> administration" had told her that Kennedy authorized the
> coup after a majority of the Latin American experts he
> consulted recommended it. But some of the purported
> participants not only denied Kennedy's giving any green
> light, they insisted the meeting never took place. Some of
> them believed an Arevalo government was Kennedy's preferred
> option to avoid greater unrest and prevent guerrilla war
> from spreading.
> =0D
> Sources: Miami Herald 12/24/66
> Bitter Fruit by Kinzer and Schlesinger pp. 243-
> 244.
> N.Y. Times 4/28/63
> Rural Guerrillas in Latin America by Gott p. 85
> =0D
> Point #3 Kennedy and the CIA
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation 1/6-13/92, p. 7
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "At the very moment bullets brought JFK's life to its
> conclusion in Dallas, a CIA officer operating firmly within
> the bounds of Kennedy's policy was handing poison to a Cuban
> agent in Paris, designed to kill Castro."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> The entire second phase of the assassination plots against
> Castro_May 1962 to November 1963_was concealed from John
> Kennedy; in fact, not even his Director of Central
> Intelligence, John McCone, knew of it. This phase included
> working with mobsters, which the Kennedys found out about by
> accident, and the plot Cockburn lists above, commonly known
> as AM/LASH, in which the CIA was operating alone and without
> Kennedy's knowledge or permission. This was after they told
> Robert that 1) They would not work with the mob again, and
> 2) They would not try to kill Castro again. The CIA itself
> admitted this in a classified study dated May 23, 1967
> entitled "Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro". This
> was not declassified until the 90's. The pertinent pages to
> this point would be pp. 68, 89.
> =0D
> Other Sources: Deadly Secrets by Hinckle and Turner p. 217
> Conspiracy by Summers pp. 321-324
> =0D
> Point #4 On the Kennedy Assassination
> =0D
> =46rom Cockburn's interview of assistant counsel Wesley
> Liebeler in
> The Nation 3/9/92, p. 294
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "What about the speed at which Oswald would have had to fire
> his Mannlicher-Carcano? Critics of the Warren Commission say
> Oswald could never have loosed off the shots in so short a
> time."
> =0D
> Liebeler:
> =0D
> ". . . . If we assume that three shots were fired you have
> the question of which shot missed. The House committee
> concluded that the first shot missed. The Warren Commission
> never decided on the matter. The evidence is consistent with
> the proposition that the first shot missed. If so, all
> Oswald had to do was fire one more shot. So in fact he would
> have had from 4.8 to 5.6 seconds to fire one shot, not three
> shots.
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "So, on that explication, he's waiting with his gun aimed.
> The car comes along, he shoots and misses. But there's no
> time fix as to when he might have fired that shot. It wasn't
> in the famous 4.8 to 5.6 second interval. He reloads and
> then fires the shot that hits the President in the neck
> between frames 210 or 225 according to the Warren
> Commission. . ."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> This exchange is startling on 2 counts:
> =0D
> 1. Liebeler, in his desperation to give Oswald a
> longer firing sequence to get off all three shots, seems to
> be saying (momentarily) that only two shots were fired,
> which of course, destroys the single bullet theory and
> acquits Oswald.
> =0D
> 2. Cockburn's statement about "no time to fix" to the
> first shot reveals his unfamiliarity with the evidence as
> contained in his interviewee's Warren Report. On page 98 of
> the report it states that from frame 166 to frame 210 of the
> Zapruder film (save for one frame) Kennedy's head was hidden
> by the branches of an oak tree. So, by their own math,
> Oswald had 5.6 seconds to fire 3 shots with a manual bolt
> action rifle which the FBI stated took 2.3 seconds to
> operate (Warren Report p. 97). The 2.3 seconds does not
> include time to aim the rifle, or to let the scope stop
> vibrating from the recoil of a shot.
> =0D
> Other Sources: Six Seconds in Dallas by Thompson pp. 29-
> 38
> Best Evidence by Lifton pp. 70-96
> =0D
>
>
> Point #5 On the Kennedy Assassination
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation 3/9/92, p. 295 of Cockburn's interview of
> Liebeler
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "The other thing that seems to cause people a lot of
> problems is the 'single-bullet theory'_the first shot that
> hit Kennedy and also John Connally."
> =0D
> Liebeler:
> =0D
> "The first shot that hit went through the top of Kennedy's
> back, came through the throat to the right of his trachea,
> didn't hit any bones."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> Again, two startling points that Cockburn left unchallenged.
> =0D
> 1. If the first shot went through the throat at the
> right of the trachea it would have smashed the cervical
> vertebrae, the small chain of bones in the back of the neck.
> Kennedy's are virtually intact. This is due to the lateral
> angle of the sixth floor window to the limousine. This was
> proven at the trial of Clay Shaw during the cross-
> examination of Dr. Pierre Finck and the direct examination
> of Dr. John Nichols by Garrison's assistant attorney Alvin
> Oser. It was also proven at a presentation in Dallas by Dr.
> David Mantik at a 30th anniversary medical panel on the
> death of John Kennedy.
> =0D
> 2. But its even worse than that. If Liebeler believes
> the bullet went through the top of Kennedy's back and exited
> his throat, he has not read the declassified transcript of
> the January 27, 1964 Executive Session of the Warren
> Commission, Chief Counsel Rankin speaking:
> =0D
> ". . . we have the picture of where the bullet entered in
> the back, that the bullet entered below the shoulder blade
> to the right of the backbone, which is below the place where
> the picture shows the bullet came out in the neckband of the
> shirt in front, and the bullet, according to the autopsy
> didn't strike any bone at all, that particular bullet, and
> go through. So that how it could turn and-" (p. 193)
> =0D
> And go upward? A quite puzzling thesis: that a bullet could
> go in at a downward angle below the shoulder blade and then
> reverse direction without deflecting so it could levitate
> and exit at the throat. The Commission itself knew the
> single-bullet theory was untenable. The thesis was so
> troubling that Rankin later added, ". . .that all has to be
> developed much more than we have at the present time."
> (Transcript p. 193) It was "developed," that is created out
> of whole cloth, by assistant counsel like Arlen Specter and
> Liebeler, who Cockburn quotes as an authority.
> =0D
> Other Sources: Best Evidence by Lifton pp. 75-80
> =0D
> Point # 6 On the Garrison Investigation and Stone's JFK
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation, 5/18/92 p. 678
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "In JFK, David Ferrie confesses to his involvement in the
> conspiracy. No such confession was made, as is clear even
> from Garrison's book. Aha, said Stone at the Town Hall
> event, the confession was made to one of Garrison's
> assistants. Ed Epstein, author of books on the Warren
> Commission and on Garrison, called this assistant, who said
> that Ferrie had done nothing of the sort and that the story
> was nonsense from start to finish. So far as historical
> scruple goes, Stone makes Cecil B. DeMille look like
> Braudel."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> The unnamed "assistant" in question is Louis Ivon, who at
> the time was Garrison's Chief Investigator and who, as the
> film shows, Ferrie took a personal liking to. When author
> Jim DiEugenio read this passage of Cockburn's he phoned Ivon
> about the purported Epstein contact. The conversation went
> like this:
> =0D
> DiEugenio: Lou, do you remember a writer named Ed
> Epstein?
> =0D
> Ivon: Epstein, Epstein. Yeah I seem to remember him
> from the investigation. Didn't he write a piece on Jim?
> =0D
> DiEugenio: Yes he did. It was in "The New Yorker". Has
> he called you recently about the film and
> the scene where Ferrie breaks down?
> =0D
> Ivon: Called me? No. Anybody who says that is full
> of bull.
> =0D
> Other Sources: JFK: The Book of the Film by Stone and
> Sklar p. 88.
> =0D
>
> Point #7 On the Garrison Investigation
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation, 5/18/92, p.678
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "Anyone who maintains. . .that Jim Garrison makes a
> persuasive case for "a right-wing conspiracy" should be
> confined to a lunatic asylum. Garrison was a berserk self-
> publicist with a penchant for locking up journalists who
> inconvenienced him. . . ."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> If Cockburn can list a journalist that was locked up by
> Garrison he must have either new or fanciful information. In
> all the studies of the Garrison investigation, both pro and
> con, there is not one such case listed. It is true that
> Garrison did charge two journalists_Walter Sheridan of NBC
> and Rick Townley of WDSU, the local NBC affiliate_but they
> got their hearings shifted to a federal court and then,
> mysteriously, had the charges dismissed. It would seem
> relevant to ask what the charges were. Among them were
> bribing, harassing, and intimidating witnesses involved in a
> criminal conspiracy case of murder.
> =0D
> Perhaps Cockburn thinks obstruction of justice is alright as
> long as you don't like the person who was murdered.
> =0D
> Sources: The Kennedy Conspiracy by Flammonde pp. 319-328
> American Grotesque by Kirkwood p. 178
> =0D
>
> Point #8 On Lee Harvey Oswald and Stone's JFK
> =0D
> =46rom The Golden Age is in Us, p. 353
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "Stone didn't have the slightest idea of how to portray him
> [Oswald]."
> =0D
> Cockburn then goes on to paint Oswald, like the Warren
> Commission, as a disturbed Marxist who after a frustrating
> experience at a communist cell meeting, "goes home and
> reaches for the mail order catalogue for Mannlicher-
> Carcanos."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> The problem here is that there is no indication from any
> piece of documentary record, any witness, any Oswald
> possession that Oswald ever attended any such meeting. In
> four official investigations, hundreds of books, the amateur
> sleuthing of thousands of researchers, no one has ever
> written of Oswald attending any such meeting, or even
> knowing a communist. On the other hand, there are many, many
> documented occurrences of Oswald associating with just the
> opposite types. In fact Oswald_the supposed
> communist_associated with two of the most rabid right-wing
> groups in the U.S. at the time: the anti-Castro Cuban exile
> group in New Orleans and the White Russian emigres in
> Dallas. The first group wanted to invade Cuba and do away
> with Castro. The second wished to overthrow the Politburo
> and bring back the Czar. Funny people for a communist to be
> hanging out with.
> =0D
> This has led many knowledgeable people to conclude that
> Oswald was not really a communist but an agent provocateur.
> In fact, two New Orleans friends of Oswald said just that,
> one memorandum being in the files of the Garrison
> investigation and one in an interview newly declassified
> from the House Select Committee files.
> =0D
> Other Sources: Spy Saga by Melanson, especially
> Chapters 3-6
> Reasonable Doubt by Hurt pp. 192-255
> =0D
>
> Point #9 On the Kennedy Assassination
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation, 5/18/92, p. 678
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> ". . . Stone, who espouses the most preposterous theory of
> all, aside from anything else requiring total suspension of
> disbelief, since not one. . .party to this imagined
> conspiracy has ever surfaced, even on deathbed or in post
> mortem testimonial, to admit participating in the mighty
> plot."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> As shown in Point #6 above, Cockburn called what Ferrie said
> in the film a confession. In reality, it is less than that.
> But in the newly declassified files of the House Select
> Committee, there are two confessions. One of whom passed a
> polygraph. Of course, Chief Counsel Robert Blakey never
> called either to testify.
> =0D
> Sources: The National Archives
> Interviews with House Select Committee investigators
> =0D
>
> Point #10 On the Kennedy Presidency
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation, 3/9/92, p. 319
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "It was L. B. J. who ended Operation Mongoose."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> The first phase of MONGOOSE lasted from February of 1962
> until August of the same year. The second phase, a more
> stepped up covert sabotage campaign, lasted from August
> until October or the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. After
> this, the administration moved all such activities off the
> mainland of the U.S. and gradually began to cut any funding
> for them. By the summer of 1963 Kennedy was using the FBI to
> actually shut down certain training camps and activities in
> Louisiana and Florida.
> =0D
> Sources: Edward Lansdale by Currey pp. 239-250
> Fidel: A Critical Portrait by Szulc p. 480
> Newly declassified note cards of Special Group
> meetings of MONGOOSE
> =0D
>
> Point #11 On Kennedy's Intent to Withdraw From Vietnam
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation, 3/9/92, p. 319
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> (After comparing two versions of NSAM 273, the order that
> reversed Kennedy's stated policy of withdrawal in NSAM 263:)
> "The italics in the first version are added by Newman, and
> in the second by Scott. They furnish an amusing example of
> two men trying to tilt, in different directions, virtually
> identical words. So Scott's whole edifice collapses. . ."
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> Only if one is unaware of the context in which the two
> writers analyze the two National Security Action Memorandums
> which, of course, Cockburn does not provide. Scott was
> quoting the final draft of NSAM 273 and comparing it to two
> previous October 2 announcements, the first by General
> Maxwell Taylor and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara; the
> second issued by Kennedy and how the second announcement
> seemed to soften our commitment to the government of South
> Vietnam. Of course when Johnson signed the final draft of
> 273 Kennedy's October announcement was radically altered as
> Scott shows. Newman is using the rough draft of 273_which
> was not available to Scott_to prepare the reader for how it
> will be changed later on November 26th by Johnson and
> McGeorge Bundy. Scott is looking backward, Newman forward
> and they are not comparing what Cockburn says they are since
> Scott did not have what Newman is analyzing.
> =0D
> Sources: The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond ed. Scott,
> Hoch, Stetler, pp. 406-442
> JFK and Vietnam by Newman p. 439
> =0D
>
> Point #12 On Kennedy's Intent to Withdraw From Vietnam
> =0D
> =46rom The Nation, 3/9/92, p. 319
> =0D
> Cockburn:
> =0D
> "There is no beef either in the famous paragraph 7 of NSAM
> 273, which in the fantasies of Scott and Newman. . is
> crucial, . . ." He then lists the paragraph. That is it for
> Cockburn's comparison of the draft version and final version
> of the two memoranda.
> =0D
> The Record:
> =0D
> The obvious question the reader would have is "What is the
> final draft of 273 being compared to and why doesn't
> Cockburn compare the two?" When one actually looks at the
> rough draft one immediately sees the answer. The draft
> version specifically states, "there should be a detailed
> plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam
> resources. . .". As Newman points out, this is gone in the
> final version. The final version signed by Johnson on
> November 26th, allowed direct U.S. covert operations against
> North Vietnam. A month later Johnson and McNamara approved
> intensified CIA actions against North Vietnam which, as
> Theodore Draper points out in a recent review of McNamara's
> book, allowed the CIA to directly support covert operations
> against North Vietnam. These attacks inside territorial
> waters led to the C. Turner Joy and Maddox incidents and the
> Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which paved the way for the
> introduction of U. S. combat troops, something that Kennedy
> never countenanced and had already refused to do as early as
> 1961.
> =0D
> It seems superfluous to add that there were also changes in
> paragraphs 8 and 9 of the final draft of NSAM 273 which,
> respectively, concerned Laos and Cambodia. The first change
> increased the size, penetration, and scope of CIA operations
> against Laos. It, of course, led to the ten year CIA war
> against the Pathet Lao, perhaps the biggest and most costly
> CIA operation ever. The second change made it easier to
> disregard the claims of Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia that the
> U.S. was running clandestine operations inside his country's
> borders. In other words, it inched the U.S. closer to
> spreading the war into Cambodia.
> =0D
> It is not hyperbole to say that the changes from the Kennedy-
> signed 263 to Johnson's 273 were a milestone on the road to
> the colossal disaster in Southeast Asia eventually finalized
> by Nixon and Kissinger in the 70's.
> =0D
> Sources: JFK and Vietnam by Newman pp.438-449
> "McNamara's Peace", New York Review of Books,
> 5/11/95, p. 9
> JFK: The Book of the Film by Scott and Sklar
> pp. 536-542. This contains the text of all the
> NSAM's in question so the reader can check any
> writer's analysis for himself.
> =0D
>
> CONCLUSION
> =0D
> As the reader can see both Cockburn and Chomsky have played
> loose with the record.
> =0D
> They have not relied on primary documents or established
> fact but have instead tried (deliberately?) to use a
> campaign of smear, invective, unfounded argument, half-
> truths, deception and assumptions in a seeming effort to
> confound and confuse the reader. Cockburn especially seems
> to have used some very questionable sources like CIA and FBI
> connected journalist Edward Epstein. This questionable
> practice continues in his new book ( p. 352) when he quotes
> a CIA officer as saying that assassination attempts on
> Castro were run directly out of the White House. He then
> goes on to say that this example led to the death squads
> that haunt South America today. Need one advise Cockburn and
> Chomsky that the CIA never liked John Kennedy, at least
> since the time when he faltered at the "Bay of Pigs" which
> led to the firing of Allen Dulles, Dick Bissell, and Charles
> Cabell? That Richard Helms acknowledged this dislike on a
> CBS 30th anniversary special to correspondent Richard
> Schlesinger? That the disinformation campaign run by the CIA
> against the Kennedys goes on to this day with veteran covert
> operator Ted Shackley actually telling a Kennedy researcher
> that it was Bobby's idea to appoint Dulles to the Warren
> Commission? Would Chomsky and Cockburn have printed that if
> Shackley had told it to them? Will they print it now? Of
> course, Cockburn and Chomsky can't admit the resentment of
> the CIA for the Kennedys. If they did, it would open the
> door to the distinct possibility that the CIA, rather than
> face 13 probable years of Kennedy domination, decided to
> erase the problem themselves. And when one adds in the fact,
> as stated above, that Oswald was likely a CIA agent
> provocateur, then that verboten word "conspiracy" comes into
> play. As if the CIA was not originated and designed by
> Dulles to carry out covert acts and conspiracies for his
> corporate clients. In the forties and fifties, it operated
> mostly abroad. In the last three decades it has operated
> domestically also. It has remained unchecked to this day.
> =0D
> Chomsky and Cockburn want to blame the system first, then
> slap the hands of the CIA. But how could corporate America
> operate, at least abroad, without the CIA? Socialist
> economist Victor Perlo very aptly joked that the acronym
> actually stands for "Corporate Interests of America". In
> their desire to denigrate "the system" Cockburn and Chomsky
> do all they can to unjustifiably trash the Kennedys. In fact
> their attacks would make covert operators like David
> Phillips proud. Their motto seems to be as Phillips'
> murderous agent in the Letelier bombing stated: "Any shit
> would confuse them, the jury is so ignorant that one of the
> best defenses at this time is to throw more shit in and stir
> it up."
> =0D
> It is strange how Kennedy stirs the passions of both the
> extreme left and extreme right. We have tried here to shed
> some light on the topic. We encourage everyone to try and
> get the primary documents yourself. If you cannot, get the
> next best thing: a near-objective commentator. No one is
> free of bias, especially on topics as controversial as
> Kennedy and his assassination. Cockburn and Chomsky seem to
> say: don't trust the Kennedys but its OK to trust CIA or CIA-
> related sources in this dispute. We say don't trust anybody,
> do your own research and we have listed our sources here for
> you to check out on your own. But the use of questionable
> sources, dubious facts, and weak documentation eventually
> leads to a cynicism in the reader. He feels that neither
> side is telling the truth, which leads to alienation and an
> eventual dropping out of the process. Today, according to a
> poll cited in Kevin Phillips' book "Arrogant Capitol", only
> 19% of the public believe in their government, a substantial
> drop from the poll of 1960 that showed that 75% of the
> public believed in government. This fact is reflected at the
> ballot box. Phillips' notes that the biggest drop in this
> belief was in 1964, the year the Warren Commission was
> issued. Obviously, when voter turnout gets low, it is easier
> for the economic elites to win. They are better organized
> and have more resources. Their strategy is to divide and
> conquer. The pattern of their ascendancy is pretty clear
> since 1968, never more obvious than in the 1994 Gingrich-
> Dole blowout. It is ironic that Cockburn and Chomsky don't
> recognize this phenomenon and seize on the issue of total
> truth, candor, and declassification of all secret documents,
> including those related to the media, so that intelligence
> related journalists can be exposed for what they are. But it
> seems these two hate Kennedy and the legacy of Camelot more
> than they love the truth.
> =0D
> Sponsored by CTKA
> Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination
> P.O. Box 5185
> Sherman Oaks CA 91413
> (310) 838-9496
>
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