FTR#1270 Interview #9 with Jim DiEugenio about JFK Revisited

Noth­ing is more impor­tant in the JFK inves­ti­ga­tion than the role of the media, the ele­ment we rely upon for our infor­ma­tion. That dis­til­late pro­vides us with our basis for mak­ing intel­li­gent, mea­sured deci­sions.

In our long series of inter­views with Mr. DiEu­ge­nio about his book Des­tiny Betrayed, we not­ed that the media have func­tioned close­ly with the intel­li­gence ser­vices and oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies to active­ly cov­er-up the truth.

The pro­gram begins with Jim’s review of the medi­a’s role in the Gar­ri­son case.

Next, we syn­op­size the role of media vis a vis the War­ren Report, includ­ing: Major net­works and MSM print voic­es (NYT, WaPo) endorse report, despite the fact that the 26 vol­umes of tes­ti­mo­ny and exhibits had yet to be released; War­ren Com­mis­sion­er John J. McCloy’s CBS inter­view where he doesn’t answer Wal­ter Cronkite’s query, nor does he men­tion that his daugh­ter Ellen heav­i­ly liaised with net­work man­age­ment on the pro­gram; Alec Baldwin’s expe­ri­ence with NBC, who wouldn’t let him book guests crit­i­cal of the War­ren Report and is told that NBC’s stance is to sup­port the offi­cial ver­sion of the assas­si­na­tion (Tom Brokaw—“No Gar­ri­son”); Back­ground on the Sarnoff fam­i­ly’s intel­li­gence con­nec­tions.

We then syn­op­size Life Mag­a­zine’s role in the cov­er-up, includ­ing: Though not dis­cussed in JFK Revis­it­ed, it was Life that pur­chased Zaprud­er film and then re-arranged the still frames in its issue sup­port­ing War­ren Report; Hen­ry Luce’s role as enabler of the Pow­ers That Be (his idol, BTW, was Mus­soli­ni); C.D. Jackson’s role with Life—though not dis­cussed in film, he was a life­long intel/national secu­ri­ty play­er; Life’s pub­li­ca­tion of the cov­er pho­to of “Oswald” hold­ing the rifle and pis­tol he sup­pos­ed­ly used in the killings; Oswald’s wed­ding ring on dif­fer­ent fin­gers of  “Oswald’s” hand. 

Next, we high­light key aspects of the rifle alleged­ly used by Oswald, includ­ing: The salient fact that in Texas (at that point in time) any­one could pur­chase a rifle over the counter with­out doc­u­men­ta­tion; Why would any­one plan­ning a polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tion pur­chase a mail-order rifle?; Dif­fer­ent bar­rel lengths of  “Oswald’s” rifle in var­i­ous pre­sen­ta­tions; dif­fer­ent mount­ings of sling on “Oswald’s” rifle in var­i­ous pre­sen­ta­tions; The fact that mail order box wasn’t in Oswald’s name, so he couldn’t have received the weapon; the dis­parate time frames involved in send­ing the weapon through the mail. 

We con­clude with dis­cus­sion of the rifle and foren­sics vis a vis its present on 6th floor “sniper’s perch,” includ­ing: The remark­ably neat place­ment of the spent car­tridges in the “sniper’s nest;” Reporter Tom Alyea’s dis­cus­sion of how the “sniper’s perch” looked pri­or to appar­ent inter­fer­ence.