Today is the 61st anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and there is a buzz amongst conspiracy theorists.
Donald Trump has promised to release the remaining secret files and thus there is excitement that we might finally know a little bit more about what happened on November 22, 1963.
The truth is that there are no secret documents regarding the JFK assassination. The only documents withheld in full are IRS documents and grand jury testimony which are both exempt from disclosure. The other documents in question have already been released but with some redactions – about 3,000 files, mostly from the CIA.
There are good reasons for some of the redactions. There are approximately four hundred files that contain the social security numbers of people who are still alive. There are also some FBI and CIA informants who are still alive who might have been promised anonymity decades ago. It would be a violation of their trust to reveal their identities. Most of the other redactions relate to intelligence methods used in the Cold War in which disclosure might still harm national security.
I think most of the latter category of documents could be safely released. But guess what? The Assassination Records and Review Board (ARRB) reviewed those documents in the 1990s, and their Chairman, Judge John Tunheim, has repeatedly stated that there are no smoking guns. So, while we might learn a bit more about the Cold War, we won't add to our knowledge about the JFK assassination itself.
Jefferson Morley has taken up the charge for releasing the documents. He usually uses extremely loose language that implies that there are thousands of unreleased documents. This has fed into a public perception that the CIA is hiding something related to the assassination.
In Scott Sayare's article for New York Magazine, Morley is wrong about the secrecy of documents:
At least 320,000 “assassination-related” documents have been released; by one estimate, some 4,000 remain withheld or redacted, the majority belonging to the CIA.
Morley summed up why he thinks the release of the remaining documents is so important: “If you want to get full disclosure on 9/11, unidentified aerial phenomenon, you’ve got to start with JFK. OK, if the CIA gets their way on the murder of a president, you know, then they’re going to get their way on other issues.”
But Morley's quote "if the CIA gets their way on the murder of a president," is somewhat obtuse. Perhaps it should be read as "if the CIA gets their way on keeping redactions secret ..." Journalists usually pride themselves on the clarity of their language. Morley thrives on ambiguity and obfuscation.
The only thing the CIA truly cares about regarding the JFK assassination, is protecting their sources and methods.
One of my friends, Eric Dezenhall, thought a John Le Carré quote was apt: (Single & Single, page 337)
He had arrived at the last, most hidden room of his search, he had prized open the most top-secret box, and it was empty. Tiger's secret was that he had no secret.
Morley specifically feels that the CIA's personnel file of George Joannides would be especially enlightening. In fact, he believes it would provide evidence of a CIA operation 'involving' Lee Harvey Oswald.
With the release of long-secret JFK files in recent years, the CIA’s surveillance of accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald from November 1959 to November 1963 has gone from a speculative proposition to a well-documented fact.
But Joannides' personnel file was examined by the ARRB and many of the documents were deemed to be not related to the JFK assassination. In addition, there was no CIA surveillance of Oswald -- he just ran into various surveillance operations.
I emailed Judge Tunheim and asked him about Joannides' personnel file, and here is one of his replies:
I think the bottom line on Joannides is that it may well be much ado about nothing. But the fact that the CIA has fought a very lengthy court battle to prevent release of the documents suggests there may be more than meets the eye. It is simply time to release everything. We should have done that long ago, the DRE connection and his role with the HSCA alone made him subject to release — Joannides is long dead — he has gotten much more attention than he likely ever would have. Until all of the files are released, there will be questions.
The [Oliver] Stone interview was interesting — he is a rather fascinating guy. I have not watched his documentary [JFK Revisited], just have not had time. My view has always been that there is no reliable evidence of a conspiracy but I will always keep an open mind. That was our goal at the ARRB — release everything so that people can decide for themselves what happened.
Yes, the Joannides issue "may well be much ado about nothing." I'm glad that Judge Tunheim added that "my view has always been that there is no reliable evidence of a conspiracy."
Tunheim has been influenced by people like Morley to believe there are still questions about this file, even though his own staff knew that Joannides oversaw the DRE in Florida. In fact, the ARRB knew exactly who he was and what he did, and they still decided that much of his personnel files should not be released.
Robert Kennedy Jr. has also played a malignant role in alleging there was a CIA conspiracy to kill both his uncle and his father. As I have showed on this blog, he can't even get his family history right.
RFK Jr. can't even quote his father properly.
He can't even quote his uncle properly.
RFK Jr. is interviewed by Tucker Carlson and tells a story about Allen Dulles that is just not true.
Another notable person to muddy the water with nonsense was director/producer Rob Reiner. His podcast series, Who Killed JFK?, garnered several million listeners. Unfortunately, he relied upon the research of Dick Russell who saddled Reiner with fabulists like Richard Case Nagell and Tosh Plumlee. During the final episode, Reiner postulated a shooting scenario based on a "highly educated guess" with at least four gunmen -- in the TSBD, behind the picket fence, in the Dal-Tex and perhaps the County Records buildings, and the overpass at the south knoll.
Michel Gagné, author of Thinking Critically About the Kennedy Assassination: Debunking the Myths and Conspiracy Theories, and I dissected Reiner's podcast:
All of this discouraging discourse brings to mind David Lifton's 1968 encounter with Jim Garrison:
“During one of our conversations, Garrison told me that his office had established an ironclad link between Ruby and Oswald. As evidence, he cited the fact that a Ft. Worth telephone number PE8-1951, was listed in Oswald’s address book and also was found on Ruby’s phone bill. Astonished, I went home and checked it out. That telephone number, as clearly indicated in Oswald’s address book, is television station KTVT, Channel 11, Fort Worth Texas.
I confronted Garrison with this the next day. He became very truculent and annoyed. “David, stop arguing the defense,” he would say.
“But, what does it mean, Jim?” I demanded. “Is there someone at the TV station whom you can prove knew both men?”
“It means whatever the jury decides it means,” he said, adding that “Law is not a science.” Finally, I asked: “But what do YOU think, Jim? What is the truth of the matter.”
His answer is one I will never forget. He said, with considerable annoyance and contempt, “After the fact, there IS NO truth. There is ONLY what the jury decides.”
JFK conspiracy theorists have taken their cue from Jim Garrison. Why argue about the facts, if you can dismiss almost anything. Why accept CE 399 into evidence when you can argue about its chain of custody. The backyard photographs prove nothing because they are fakes. JFK's brain weighs too much and so it must be someone else's brain. There is a complete set of missing autopsy photographs and so we can ignore the existing autopsy materials. The cartridges recovered from the Tippit shooting might have been fired from Oswald's revolver, but who can say exactly when. And because Ruby handyman Larry Crafard looked like Oswald, maybe he was the guy who killed Tippit. And why not use a fake Oswald handbill to tie him to 544 Camp Street.
And the latest JFK assassination books are also discouraging to say the least.
Vince Palamara's new book, The Plot to Kill President Kennedy in Chicago and other Traces of Conspiracy Leading to the Assassination of JFK, is an epic failure in that it doesn't provide any evidence of a plot in Chicago.
In May 2023, Palamara received a phone call from somebody who had some information on the JFK assassination. This person linked Palamara with former Secret Service agent Nemo Ciochina, who had some explosive information. Ciochina told Palamara that the real conspiracy against JFK was not in Texas, but in Chicago and that he should focus on a man by the name of Lloyd John Wilson. But the Warren Commission knew all about Wilson -- he was a young man who claimed that he paid Lee Harvey Oswald $1,000 at a wrestling match in San Francisco to kill JFK -- and they realized this was not worth any of their time.
Like many other stories in this case (Raymond Broshears, Richard Case Nagell, Rose Cherami) mental health played a major role. When I wrote that I thought it was silly to think that Lloyd John Wilson was any sort of suspect, Palamara then wrote that perhaps he had met an Oswald impersonator.
A heavily promoted book was The JFK Assassination: Chokeholds, by James DiEugenio and four other authors:
This book purports to document the "chokeholds" that prove conspiracy. You can have a look at my eighteen posts debunking excerpts from this book.
What's amazing about this book is not what is in it, but what is not. Snippets of information are given out without context or nuance. A good example is his first chapter which lists a variety of statements that seemingly prove conspiracy.
Chapter author Bleau includes a summary of the HSCA conclusions. He also makes the following points:
Oswald and Ruby were not loners and "were involved in relationships that could have matured into a conspiracy."
Oswald was connected to David Ferrie and Guy Banister, if not Clay Shaw.
Jack Ruby was connected to the Mafia.
Marina Oswald's "incriminating statements against her husband were found to be lacking in credibility."
The HSCA believed Sylvia Odio.
The Lopez Report "established that someone was impersonating Oswald."
The Justice Department reinvestigation of the case only looked at the acoustical evidence, "which it rejected based on science, but that itself is also contested."
That's quite an omission, no?
Some of the names that appear in this book are Fred Crisman, Judyth Vary Baker, Leander D'avy, Eladio del Valle, Gordon Novel, Roger Craig, Julia Ann Mercer, Richard Giesbrecht, Richard Case Nagell, John Armstrong's Harvey & Lee, Jim Hicks (the book claims there were two Jim Hicks), and Fletcher Prouty.
The chapter on Permindex has few footnotes and a large part of it quotes a Lyndon LaRouche publication. Why should anybody take seriously the ravings of material from LaRouche's lunatic organization?
The chapter on Permindex is riddled with errors and there are no footnotes. The author of this book did not visit Ottawa to see the papers of Louis Bloomfield, the Montreal lawyer who represented several of the major shareholders in Permindex. Nor did they visit the National Archives to get Clay Shaw's papers on Permindex. And they also did not have the State Department memos on Permindex. How on earth could they understand this topic without primary documents?
Well, who needs primary documents when you can just rely on ridiculous secondary material?
Earlier this week, Jefferson Morley interviewed Vince Palamara on his new book referenced above. There's not a hint of skepticism. Morley just accepts the premise of Palamara's book and thus uses his platform to spread the myth that there was a plot against JFK in Chicago in early November 1963.
I have continually posted articles about the lack of evidence of any plot in Chicago in November 1963:
Chad Nagle tries to argue that there was a plot.
The HSCA did speak to Edwin Black. It was a memorable interview.
There is no evidence of a plot in Chicago against JFK.
Bolden's story about the supposed Chicago plot has changed over the years.
An examination of supposed other plots against JFK.
Bolden didn't say one word about a supposed plot against JFK in Chicago.
Truth matters. It shouldn't be a battle between people who believe in conspiracy and people who don't. It should be about the truth. Unfortunately, all too often, it all comes down to a Castro slogan, adapted by Paul Hoch:
Within Conspiracism, everything; against Conspiracism, nothing