A moment of sympathy please for the scribblers charged with the vital role of keeping the sheep unaware of the pen. We never thank them for shielding us from the unpleasant realities of America’s political regime. On the other hand, we make it so easy for them. As in this week’s example, where journalists Scott Shane tells us to move along, nothing to see here.
Such stories show that the Times’ leadership values its social function more than its business. Exciting stories — like this — must be played down, written as boring trivia. Exciting but politically incorrect stories get buried, such as Edward’s infidelity and the stories about Obama appointees Van Jones and Chas Freeman. So its audience goes to sources of real news, and the Times slowly dies.
Now to our award winner: “C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery“, Scott Shane, New York Times, 16 October 2009 — Red emphasis added. At the end of this post is more material of interest.
Excerpt
Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior.
For 6 years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency’s history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance.
The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Mr. Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations — but never told the committee of his earlier role.
That concealment has fueled suspicion that Mr. Joannides’s real assignment was to limit what the House committee could learn about C.I.A. activities. The agency’s deception was first reported in 2001 by Jefferson Morley, who has doggedly pursued the files ever since, represented by James H. Lesar, a Washington lawyer specializing in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
… the deceptions began in 1964 with the Warren Commission. The C.I.A. hid its schemes to kill Fidel Castro and its ties to the anti-Castro class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”anti-Castro “>Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or Cuban Student Directorate, which received $50,000 a month in C.I.A. support during 1963.
… His lawsuit has uncovered the central role in overseeing directorate activities of Mr. Joannides, the deputy director for psychological warfare at the C.I.A.’s Miami station, code-named JM/WAVE. He worked closely with directorate leaders, documents show, corresponding with them under pseudonyms, paying their travel expenses and achieving an “important degree of control” over the group, as a July 1963 agency fitness report put it.
Fifteen years later, Mr. Joannides turned up again as the agency’s representative to the House assassinations committee. … the committee’s staff director, G. Robert Blakey, had {no} idea that Mr. Joannides had played a role in the very anti-Castro activities from 1963 that the panel was scrutinizing.
When Mr. Morley first informed him about it a decade ago, Mr. Blakey was flabbergasted. “If I’d known his role in 1963, I would have put Joannides under oath — he would have been a witness, not a facilitator,” said Mr. Blakey, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. “How do we know what he didn’t give us?”
After Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “J.F.K.” fed speculation about the Kennedy assassination, Congress created the Assassination Records Review Board to release documents. But because the board, too, was not told of Mr. Joannides’s 1963 work, it did not peruse his records, said Judge Tunheim, the chairman.
“If we’d known of his role in Miami in 1963, we would have pressed for all his records,” Judge Tunheim said.
About hidden history
Much of truth about current events lies in the realm of hidden history, revealed only one or more generations later. For instance, the military history of WWII we learned in school was largely false. The reputation of UK and US generals was trashed with the revelation in the 1970’s of Enigma (we read almost all their coded messages) and the treason of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (head of the Abwehr, military intelligence). During the war Canaris gave the UK most of Hitler’s war plans, which they ignored.
Other examples:
- In 1962 the American people knew all President Kennedy. Healthy, athletic, and a good family man. The truth was very different.
- So it is with Watergate. The noble deep-throat, serving America’s freedom. The intrepid journalists. All a myth. (See here for details)
The white whale of hidden history for Americans is the Kennedy assassination. Will we ever learn the truth?
Other articles of interest about the Kennedy assassination
“The Mystery of Marina Oswald“, Stratfor, 23 November 2003 — Summary:
With the passing of the 40th anniversary of the JFK assassination, STRATFOR pauses to consider one of the less-examined aspects of the case: Marina Oswald. Her connections to the Soviet intelligence apparatus and odd marriage to Lee Harvey Oswald are seldom factored into any theories surrounding the assassination. However, the facts of the case make it clear that the Soviet government wanted Marina Prusakova and Oswald together in the United States.
For more information from the FM site
To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar. Of esp relevance to this topic:
- Posts about America’s national defence appartatus
- Posts about America – how can we reform it? — esp section #8 about solutions
Reference pages about other topics appear on the right side menu bar, including About the FM website page.
Posts about the CIA:
- The Plame Affair and the Decline of the State, 25 October 2005
- The new NIE, another small step in the Decline of the State, 10 December 2007
- A must-read book for any American interested in geopolitics, 5 March 2008 — “Legacy of Ashes”
- When will global oil production peak? Ask the CIA!, 1 May 2008
- Something every American should read, 25 May 2009 — About the CIA’s use of torture
- Another urban legend that will not die: the CIA is the world’s major drug dealer, 11 July 2009
- Ignatius proposes “A New Deal for The CIA” – perhaps they should sometimes obey our laws, 21 September 2009
Afterword
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