WHEN THE TRUTH IS FOUND TO BE LIES
In my life, there have been three Pearl Harbor moments. By that I mean incidents, like the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, that took everyone by surprise, and were big enough to change the course of history. The first was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the second was the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the third was the election of Donald Trump on November 8, 2016.
Now the third disaster has reopened memories of the first. Donald Trump promised to release ALL the hitherto classified information on the Kennedy Assassination. Predictably, he went back on his word. Some new information has been released, but as long as anything remains secret, no official explanation is completely credible.
I’m surprised at how pissed off I am about this particular broken promise.
The Kennedy assassination had a profound effect on me and my generation. It was the event that officially threw cold water on the post-war American Dream. The murder of a president was bad enough, but then the alleged assassin was himself murdered – while he was in police custody, surrounded by armed policemen. And then the official investigation somehow made things worse. The Warren Commission Report ignored and suppressed evidence in reaching its pre-ordained conclusion – lone gunman, no conspiracy, nothing to see here, just move on.
I’d be shocked if Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t involved in the assassination. The evidence I’ve seen suggests that he was at the very least one of the shooters, and maybe the only one. When he was arrested, he described himself as “a patsy,” someone set up to take the fall for others. Maybe he was lying. Maybe not. In my view, the jury is still out on whether he acted alone or had help, directly or indirectly. But one thing I’m sure of is that there was a cover up, even if it was only to hide the rank incompetence on the part of the FBI and CIA in the months and days before the assassination.
One Warren Commission skeptic was none other than President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson told one of his speech writers that "I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger." Johnson was dismayed when he learned about the CIA’s attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. He put it this way: the CIA “had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean.” Johnson thought the assassination was a revenge killing. That information remained secret until after Johnson’s death, of course. For public consumption, the new President endorsed the Warren Commission’s lone gunman theory. Nothing to be gained from a public airing the intelligence community’s dirty laundry, after all.
Personally, I favor Norman Mailer’s theory. He suggested that In 1963, the CIA had overreached. They were involved in too many plots in too many places. They had too many agents, some of whom were double agents, and even triple agents. They employed too many shady characters (including hard core Mafiosi) as informants. They couldn’t keep track of it all. As a result, they couldn’t be certain that someone connected to them was NOT involved in the assassination. And they sure as hell didn’t want investigators, government or civilian, poking around in all that mess. They had every incentive to blame the whole thing on Lee Harvey Oswald, who was conveniently dead. And who may, of course, have actually been guilty.
That’s my opinion now, with the benefit of hindsight. When reporters began to poke holes in the official account of the assassination, I was 17. All I knew then was that the most powerful grown-ups in my world were lying to me. We take that for granted now. In 1965, it was a shock. If you wonder why my generation is prone to believe in conspiracy theories, this is where it started. Vietnam is where it came of age, but that’s another story, albeit involving many of the same characters.
My question is this. In 2017, what national security issue could possibly outweigh the benefit of resolving the crime of the 20th century once and for all – especially if Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed the lone gunman? Lyndon Johnson is dead. Fidel Castro is dead. Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, and Handsome Johnny Roselli are dead. The whole damn Soviet Union is dead. Every last member of the FBI, the CIA, and the KGB who might have had anything to do with the Kennedy assassination, its investigation or coverup, is dead. I’d love to hear the State Department, the CIA, and the FBI explain why they still need to keep secrets from a half century ago.
For you young folks, this short video with a soundtrack by Steinski & Mass Media called “The Motorcade Sped On” will give you a four minute summary of the Kennedy assassination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjyFwbSNh4o