Various newspaper and magazine clippings of articles relating to JFK, Jim Garrison, individuals under investigation, Martin Luther King, and other topics that interested Garrison. Also, includes excerpts from books regarding the JFK assassination and some

Clandestine America Clandestine America Not so fast. As we would find out later, Barger had grown more all. How now, Star? Do we hear an apology? A little self-criticism? No way. The FBI, poor thing, stands indicted in this case. It and more sharply aware, as the time to testify publicly ap- That was the Christmas present the acoustics people handed the committee on December 29, 1978: scientific proof of Nothing of the sort enters the Star's mind. Right straight on it stands exposed in moral and all but legal complicity in the murder proached, of the enormous impact his testimony would have. The conspiracy. marches with its hackneyed arrogance. 'Modern witchcraft," it of King. It stands accused of the grossest misfeasances in the implications awed him. The more he considered the matter, the grumbles of the acoustics evidence, "esoteric," "highly infer- JFK investigation, including the destruction of primary pieces of less did he want his testimony, his analysis, to bear the whole Was this a verdict that the staff, the committee, and the Congress had wanted to come up with? On the contrary. The new ential, "exiguous." physical evidence and the deliberate deception of the Warren weight of a conspiracy verdict. Cold feet. Then worse, on its news pages of March 16, the Star un- Commission on significant matters of circumstance. The FBI may The night before he was to testify Barger told senior staff advocates of conspiracy theory were dragged kicking and leashed its Jeremiah o 'Leary in an incredible-to-beholo effort to not be exactly a suspect in these murders, but neither is it a people he was nervous, but the word didn't seem to reach the screaming the whole way. They had not wanted this result. muddy the acoustics issue by quoting radically out of context blameless bystander committee members, who convened their public session that But once they had found this evidence, there was little they certain passages from the final report submitted by Weiss and There are certain tasks, clearly, that the FBI should carry out. morning still expecting to hear a possible scientific refutation could do but face its implications and speak the words, "con- Aschkenasy in order to make it appear that these two experts The FBI should do the two things the committee asked of it in its of the Warren theory. Thus there was real surprise among them spiracy probable in JFK assassination. Chief counsel Blakey had reconsidered and retracted their former testimony on the December report. First, the FBI should review the acoustics was in a sense disarmed by his own weapons in this climax. It results and either confirm them or challenge them through addi- as it dawned that morning that they were not about to get that. For Barger now seemed to be saying that there was only a 50- had been his strategy, as a lawyer confronting certain technical front page. Nothing of the kind was the case. The Star story is child' play tional technical analysis. Second, it should enhance the relevant 50 chance that there were four shots instead of three. It problems of proof, to define 'best evidence" as 'scientific see through for anyone the least educated in the issue. But to 92 frames of the Bronson film (see article this issue) to see if was to 50-50 that one of the four shots was a "false alarm,' and the shot evidence,' and to give less weight to the things people said they the lay public, the impression will have been supported that there the "lone assassin" had company in the sniper's nest. They among the four that would most likely not be a shot, after all, saw or heard. He was saying in effect, "You can be fooled by what is something serious to argue about in the acoustics evidence. should do these two things because they lie within the province Perhaps there will prove to be, but that will be revealed to us only of objectively verifiable scientific work and the political subjectiv- but a false alarm-that was shot number three, the positive shat you think you hear or see. Let's see instead what kind of facts from the grassy knoll. we can ascertain through the use of objective scientific exami- by new scientific work on the dictabelt, not by )'Leary's clumsy ity of the Bureau can be factored out with comparative ease. But One by one the reporters drifted out of the hearing room to nations of material pieces of evidence. Whatever can be deter- deceptions or the ignorant posturings of the Star's editorial there can be no thought of conceding the FBI a controlling hand phone in retractions of the morning's headline news. By three mined scientifically will be regarded as having been determined in the official investigation to come. writers. that afternoon the media were back on the lone-assassin team, absolutely, and any contradictory direct testimony- saw this, The thought returns and abides that even more contemptible The assassination-conspiracy question takes us into the heart looking smug, like people who had just survived a dangerous heard be discounted." than the role of the agencies and institutions of the federal gov- of American darkness: What role the Mob? What role the police? detour. This is why, for example, Blakey was forced to insist that all of ernment in the JFK affair has been the role of the independent What role the intelligence agencies and the covert-operations Actually Barger had merely allowed himself to be misunder- shots that hit JFK were fired from behind. He had a body mass media. It is they most profoundly who deformed the facts elements? What role the military. and other foreign powers? What stood. The point he was making to the committee was that the "medical evidence" consisting basically of x-rays. The nature of and distorted the public context of the Kennedy debate, and who role the political system? probability mechanics of his study allowed him to state with cer- these x-rays was such that expert study of them could determine continue to do so even after the evidence against them is A whole separate, independent investigative capability is re- the physical details of the shots. And one of the details shown quired to probe such questions It will have to be recruited from tainty that no more than two of these four shots were real shots. definitive That all four were real was only 50-50. by the x-rays, said Blakey's medical panel, was that the headshot The media elite will eventually come around on JFK, neverthe- the existing agencies, but it will have to be run by an office as The mass-media people were in no mood to absorb fine dis- bullet came from behind. Therefore, any evidence indicating that less, if only in their inner mental set. We noticed with bemuse- detached as possible from the regular government. tinctions. They thought they had been offered a direct proof of the headshot came from the front-tho Zapruder headsnap, ment the all but prurient investigative zeal with which the New The Philadelphia Inquirer is the one and only major American conspiracy and then had it snatched back. They were tired of the certain eyewitness testimony-would simply have to be refuted was York Times prowled and reported the Nelson Rockefeller death- daily newspaper the AIB has seen that squarely faced this re- whole thing suddenly. They might have bought little conspiracy or discounted or explained away. The scientific evidence bed scene. On this kind of gossip the big media will all be quirement. "Because of its actions," said the Inquirer in an evidence, but they would not tolerate the sort of technical the best evidence, and the best evidence would predetermine and the weekend-warrior conspiracists. But they will to report the editorial of January 4, 1979, 'any findings by Justice [i.e., the value of all the other evidence: good if it supported science JFK case responsibly because they are so afraid of it, no doubt FBI] would be suspect, particularly if it should determine that ambiguities and complexities that could not be snugly fitted into a standard news-story lead. There were either four shots or not, bad if it did not. properly so, since they have so badly burned themselves on it in there were no conspiracies in either case. Therefore, President Now this self-same standard of evidence had reversed its bear- Carter should "appoint a special prosecutor, independent of the and if it can't be determined that there were four, then the as- the past. sumption, please, will be that there were three and that the ing and was committing Blakey and the committee inexorably said But probably it doesn't matter. If 80% of us can see through Department of Justice. Warren Commission was right all along. to a conspiracy conclusion. Science was best and science the Warren concoctions when 80% of the mainstream opinion The AIB supports this idea. Appointment of a special prosecu- two gunmen, period. A government body that was very probably elite are preaching to us how solid these concoctions are, then tor represents the best possible further official development of So the critics had no sooner stuck out their necks to get their created to silence the conspiracy buffs, freaks and paranoids what the "opinion makers" think and say must not make that the case. The problem is that it also requires President Carter to medais than they found themselves in a noose instead. The act, and Carter may have reasons for not wanting to act. reporters were again ready to write the whole thing off, more now found itself cast among them. much difference. disgusted with conspiracy freaks than ever. 'See?" one of them ELITE REACTIONS WHAT TO DO NOW? FUTURE CRITIQUE said to an AIB staffer at the that day, "there' nothing there at all." And when the AlBer begged leave to differ, he sneered, 'You guys are just as crazy as Mark Lanel" As all know, the overwhelming majority of the American The big question now pending as the final report's publication As for our critical community, besides agitating however we people have thought pretty well all along that the Warren date keeps being slipped back (we are now told to look for the can for a special prosecutor, we nodoubt have very real and quite But if 50-50 on the knoll shot was a de facto win for the Warren Commission in the eyes of the media, it was fortunately not so Report was not the last word. But this is absolutely the other printed final report by May 1st) is what kind of response will the different kinds of tasks confronting us. My own sense of these (1 viewed by the committee. Frankly, the committee could have way around among the "issue elite, the politicians and media the report get from the Justice Department. Justice might say, "Ah will not try to be programmatic) will appear in the following groups who produce the picture of the world we see in ha! The culprits are still loose. To horsel" But it also might say, observations. gotten away with dropping the whole acoustics kaboodle right there. But the committee decided it had to move the probability evening news and the daily gazette. If eight out of ten ordinary of 'Alas, too late, the whole thing is too boring.' a. There is no need to keep pounding on a long-locked door of conspiracy off the 50-50 mark, one way or another, and that people believe JFK was killed by a conspiracy, then eight out poli- The initiative has yet to shift formally from the committee to whose hinges have just sprung loose. The closed door to the JFK ten reporters, eight out of ten academics, eight out of ten the Justice Department because the report has not yet been pub- assassination will never come unbolted. Like every really impor- new tests were therefore required. ticians, eight out of ten arbiters of fashionable opinion believe to lished, so even though the committee stated its essential findings tant closed door, it comes open first by the wrong side. This was the point at which the two new acoustics experts that Warren was essentially correct, that there was nothing or last December, Justice has not yet been obliged to say what it Just so with this select committee. From the critics standpoint, were put under contract. Their assignment was to review the gain from further questioning, that there was nothing new means to do. No doubt persons of some inner sanctum have been it did everything wrong. It coddled sensitive witnesses like BB&N tests and carry out additional analysis to determine significant to be learned, that the whole thing didn't make any using this winter hibernation to mull the question over, and the Marina Oswald Porter, Richard Helms and Dr James Humes. It was indicated in the DPD belt. whether or not the existence of a second Dealey Plaza gunman difference anyway. Remember this always, that such have been in step we finally see taken by the government will be well con- sucker-punched critical witnesses like Robert Groden, Cyril the views of the mainstream "makers of public opinion," sidered. The committee is careful in its final report draft to cau- Wecht, and Jack White. It let itself be bullied by the CIA. It led off The new experts were professors Mark Weiss and Ernest diametrical opposition to what that opinion actually is. tion Justice against seeing its options too simplistically. "The with a strong anti-critical, no-conspiracy snobbism Aschkenasy of Queens College, New York. They are said to rank And these makers have been ruthless in their error. Bad choice," reads the draft final report's last paragraph, in part, But in spite of all that, it turned the JFK case around. To be with Barger in level of expertise. They, too, have done fancy acoustics work for the military. They, too, were court-appointed enough to refuse the truth, how much worse to calumniate as "is not between a full-scale reopening of both cases or making an sure, momentum can very easily be lost again, but as of spring effort to forget them. There are in both cases limited areas that 1979, there is a better chance of forward movement in the case to study the Nixon and Kent State tapes. well those who will not do so. In a past issue of Clandestine And employing nothing more complex than the classical laws America (Vol. 2, #1), we cited an especially noxious Washington may profitably be explored further. What the committee found than ever before. And that is because this anti-conspiracist Star editorial (12/9/77) which dared suggest that the money out in both cases that previously had not been known must be committee, despite itself, found conspiracy. of the physics of the propogation of sound, plus accurate archi- spent by this committee would have been better spent on finding used for rethinking what was done before.' b. My impression is that some critics have a hard time seeing tectural and acoustical data on Dealey Plaza, Weiss and Aschkenasy found themselves scientifically forced to state with a pill' with which "to neutralize the peculiar body chemistry The problem here is that these "limited areas" would all this and taking it into strategic account. It means something that of compulsive conspiracy theorists. apparently involve the FBI, so that if one favors re-opening the a congressional committee has essentially supported the critics, "a better than 95% certainty" that there were four shots and that Well, time went by, the committee heard the arguments, case, one finds oneself in the bizarre position of arguing for the even if it was trying to destroy them. Some of our fellow critics the third of these was fired from the knoll. There were two weighed the evidence, and concluded that Warren and the Star FBI to take it up. find it tempting in this circumstance to vent their feelings against gunmen. and those of like mind were wrong. There was a conspiracy, after