Quote:David Talbot responds to Phil Shenon:

Phil Shenon continues to recycle the myth -- long propagated in CIA circles -- that Fidel Castro was behind the JFK assassination. He now adds another piece of disinformation, asserting that Robert Kennedy also fell for this CIA propaganda line. This is completely false. I interviewed over 150 close friends, colleagues and family members of Bobby Kennedy, including Kennedy administration officials and insiders, for my book, "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years." NONE of them indicated to me that Castro was among Bobby's leading suspects in the assassination of his brother. Instead, they said that RFK immediately focused on the CIA and its ANTI-Castro operation as the source of the plot against President Kennedy. My sources included close advisors of Bobby Kennedy like Adam Walinsky, Frank Mankiewicz, Ed Guthman and Richard Goodwin -- as well as assassination researchers with whom Bobby Kennedy met during his secret search for the truth. I also interviewed the widow and close associates of Walter Sheridan, Bobby Kennedy's top investigator ever since his days as the chief of the 1950s Senate rackets probe. Who are Shenon's sources?

RFK was fully aware of how politically explosive his search for the truth about Dallas was, considering the enormous power wielded by the U.S. security forces that he suspected, and the criminal underworld elements with whom they were aligned. So he was very careful in his public remarks about the Warren Report, which he privately considered a whitewash. It is clear from my research that Bobby Kennedy was biding his time until he could return to the White House, at which point he planned to use the full powers of the executive branch to track down those in Washington who were responsible for murdering his brother.

Shenon also repeats the old canard that RFK urged President Johnson to appoint former CIA director Allen Dulles to the Warren Commission. This bogus story apparently originated with Lyndon Johnson himself, who alleged in his 1971 memoir that Bobby recommended both Dulles and John McCloy, another Republican pillar of the Wall Street-national security world. Johnson, of course, was one of the most notorious fabulists who ever occupied the Oval Office. And his hatred of Bobby Kennedy, who by 1971 was conveniently dead, was one of the core passions of LBJ's life. The notion that Johnson would huddle with his arch enemy to make such a politically delicate choice as the makeup of the Warren Commission is absurd. So is the the idea that Bobby himself would recommend two men who were political enemies of his late brother -- two men with whom JFK had strongly clashed over national security policy. In truth, as close CIA associates of Dulles later revealed, such as Richard Helms, Dulles himself arm-twisted his way onto the Warren Commission, where he and McCloy soon established themselves as the dominant players.

This is one more example of Shenon's gullibility when it comes to covering CIA-related issues. In fact, his new "scoop" in Politico about the Warren Commission is based on newly declassified excerpts from a CIA biography of John McCone, Dulles's successor as CIA director, by CIA historian David Robarge. Shenon treats Robarge's institutional version of this history as an important revelation,when it should be treated with sharp journalistic skepticism. All documents that the CIA freely releases, like Robarge's redacted report on McCone, are made public for a reason. In this case, it's clearly part of the CIA's 50-year campaign to manage public perceptions of the Kennedy assassination.
The mainstream media in this country, from the New York Times (where Shenon once worked) on down, has never had the investigative courage of Bobby Kennedy to deeply examine the true source of the epic crime that took place in Dallas in November 1963. The Washington Post's legendary editor, Ben Bradlee, had the honesty to tell me why, during an interview late in his life. He was afraid it would hurt his rising journalism career, if he dared to open these doors, Bradlee told me.

This is why when Americans search for the truth about the Kennedy assassination, they must look outside these mainstream media circles for the truth, at the pathbreaking work done by independent journalists, historians and citizen researchers.

Quote:The genesis of this new stage was a call from a Warren Commission lawyer to Shenon, who then fed Shenon and used him as the mouthpiece for this outrageous scheme.

Quote:'Tom Scully', on 02 May 2012 - 05:16 AM, said:
.......
...Larry Brandon bought all of the available night time hours and with Don Logan, Buddy Blake and Bob Smith began making prerecorded radio shows on 10 inch, one hour tapes which were then mailed by Brandon from Shreveport to Gonzelez in Del Rio who had them delivered to Ciudad Acuña for airplay. According to Logan these programs replaced the preachers and went out from 6pm to 6am, but Logan also says that only six hours of programming was recorded per day and leaves the impression that the tapes were repeated.

Brandon's programming on XERF reached Shreveport which according to Logan presented a conflict of interest for the people who were making them. However, it was on these taped programs that Bob Smith began to morph into Wolfman Jack in order to conceal his real identity from the XERF listeners and from his daytime employers at KCIJ-AM in Shreveport. Logan says that when Smith began to create his gravely voiced character of Wolfman Jack to which he added a howl, he told Bob Smith:

"That howl of yours would wake a dead man and that dead man might be Hank Williams and he, sure as hell, doesn't want you Howling at the Moon'."

Again according to Logan, the taping came to an end when Brandon began offering XERF listeners an autographed picture of Jesus. It was then that Bob Smith took off from Shreveport to visit Arturo Gonzalez at his law office on Pecan Street in Del Rio. It was Gonzalez who sent him across the U.S.-Mexico border each day to do live programs from the studio of XERF at Ciudad Acuña for Inter-American Radio Advertising, Inc., which Gonzalez operated from his law office......
https://web.archive.org/web/20100824062009/http://www.dandydonlogan.com/people.html
DARK HORSES AND RADIO FREQUENCIES - ..........This angered Gordon McLendon to no end and is one reason why he bought KTBS radio and turned it into KEEL! Before Buddy left KEEL, Marvin Kasofski, known in the south as Marvin Burton came down from Newport News, Va. and bought KCIJ. He found a fellow, named Bob Smith at a carwash, and hired him. When KREB folded, Larry Brandon, bought 6pm to 6am nightly on XERF and made a deal with Bob Smith, Buddy and I to do the 12 hours nightly on tape he needed to program the station. He took all the preachers, who had not been
paying their bills at the station, off the air and kept maybe one or two, who were paying. When, the three of us met in Brandon's office, I could see the envy in Bob's eyes over being there with Buddy.

Quote:https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2012/06/20/phyllis-meras-passing-away-old-martha-vineyard/1sUtes86AkssKAfkXia6QJ/story.html
By Carol Stocker Globe Correspondent June 20, 2012
Who ? Phyllis Meras

.......Q. Why did you write this book? [B]A. People come here because they like the blueberries and the beaches and the moors, and then they build their McMansions and destroy what they came for. This is about the eternal aspects of the Vineyard that should be cherished.[/B]
[B] [B]Q. Are you an islander?[/B][/B]
[B][B] [B]A. No. We're now in our fifth generation summering on the Vineyard but you have to be born on the Vineyard to be an islander. I became a full-time resident when I became managing editor of the Vineyard Gazette for six years starting in 1967. I had been an editor at The New York Times and James B. Reston, the revered columnist and editor there, had just bought it from Henry Beetle Hough, who had owned it for 60 years.
[B]Q. What was it like running the island paper?......[/B]

[/B][/B][/B]
............
Q. How have the summer residents changed?
[B]A. The wealthy people when I was young were artists and intellectuals like James Cagney and Katherine Cornell and Thomas Hart Benton. I would meet them at cocktail parties given by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Garson Kanin who collaborated on the production of "The Diary of Anne Frank." People are much richer now, and it's corporate money. There's less discretion and more conspicuous consumption. Now you can pay tens of thousands of dollars for a key to a gated ocean beach. Henry Beetle Hough was the single most important force for conservation on the island, and after he died someone who works for Goldman Sachs tore down his house, which I tried to save, and put up a huge mansion for three months a year. They cut the trees down, too.[/B]
[B] [B]Q. Why the change?[/B][/B]
[B][B] [B]A. Two things. The filming of "Jaws" and Ted Kennedy going off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, which happened at about the same time, brought notoriety to Martha's Vineyard. Before that, Nantucket was much better known. Developers started looking up deeds and buying land. [/B][/B][/B]
[B][B] [B]Q. What will you be remembered for on the island? [/B][/B][/B]
[B][B] [B]A. Writing features . . . and obituaries! I know the people who are dying off and their relationship to the island. I wrote one for Walter Cronkite and one for Beverly Sills, who was very warm and outgoing. I just finished one for Gladys Widdiss, who was the president of the Wampanoag tribe from 1978 to 1987, when they acquired the Gay Head Cliffs and cranberry bog. At 97, she was still making pottery from Gay Head clay.[/B][/B][/B]

Quote:http://archives.library.illinois.edu/ead/ua/2620120/2620120f.html

An Inventory of the James B. Reston Papers at the University of Illinois Archives.
...........
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 3"]Reston's Clerks[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1961-62[/TD]
[TD]Jonathan Yardley[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1962-63[/TD]
[TD]Christopher Willoughby[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1963[/TD]
[TD]Donald E. Graham[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1964-65[/TD]
[TD]Steven V. Roberts[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1965-66[/TD]
[TD]Craig R. Whitney[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1966-67[/TD]
[TD]Iver Peterson[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1967[/TD]
[TD]David K. Shipler[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1967-68[/TD]
[TD]James P. Sterba[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1968-69[/TD]
[TD]Linda Greenhouse[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1969-70[/TD]
[TD]Rick Edmonds[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1973-74[/TD]
[TD]William Hamilton[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1974-75[/TD]
[TD]Steven Rattner[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1975-76[/TD]
[TD]David W. Dunlap[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1976-77[/TD]
[TD]Matthew L. Wald[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1977-78[/TD]
[TD]John Hough, Jr.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1978-79[/TD]
[TD]James Brooke[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1980-81[/TD]
[TD]Nis Kildegaard[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1981-82[/TD]
[TD]Philip Shenon[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1982-83[/TD]
[TD]Sam Howe Verhovek[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1983-84[/TD]
[TD]Eric Schmitt[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1984-85[/TD]
[TD]Amy Wallace[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1985-86[/TD]
[TD]James Newton[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1986-88[/TD]
[TD]Hilary Stout[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1988-89[/TD]
[TD]Jack Steinberg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1989-90[/TD]
[TD]Richard Coe[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]1991[/TD]
[TD]Stewart Yerten[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Quote: JFK Jr-"SKY FLASH" REPORTER UNAPPROACHABLE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aug. 5, 1999

I just phoned the Martha's Vineyard Gazette and spoke with a
woman there. I asked her about the statement -- in the July 17th
United Press International report of the John F. Kennedy Jr.
plane crash http://www.upi.com/corp/news/jfkjr3.html
-- that a reporter for the Martha's Vineyard Gazette had
witnessed an explosion in the sky around the time of the crash.
She replied, "Oh, that story was completely bogus. What really
happened was that someone was shooting off fireworks on Falmouth."
"Falmouth?" I said, "Is that an island?" "Falmouth," she said,
"is the closest point to Martha's Vineyard."
I said, "But this reporter witnessed an explosion in the SKY."
She countered, "Well, they were shooting rockets up in the
air, or something like that."

Fearing that she might hang up if I continued to contradict her,
I asked, "May I speak with the reporter who witnessed this?"
"Oh, no," she replied nervously, "we can't do that."
I said, "Oh, that's strange. What could be the problem with
speaking to a reporter?" She repeated, "We can't permit that."
I said, "Okay, can you at least give me his name?"
"No, we can't do that, either," she persisted." Then she added,
"He no longer works for us," almost as if she were making it up,
just to get me to give up. Then when I responded with a surprised
"Ohhh", she suddenly realized that her comment had made matters
worse and, in a jolt of vexation, she sputtered, "Oh, no, no!
It has nothing to do with that incident. He went back to school."
"Oh," I said, "so is he a journalism student?" After an
answerless pause, I thanked her and said goodbye.
I think she was relieved.

What do you make of this, folks? What questions would
you have asked if you had called the Martha's Vineyard
Gazette, at (508)627-4311? Would you have asked if the
reason why the UPI quote (of his statement that he saw a
"big white flash" in the sky off Philbin Beach at about
the time of the crash) was expunged from ALL subsequent
news reports from ALL news outlets was because this
reporter had personally called United Press International
and told them that he had made a mistake -- that the
"big white flash" he saw in the sky off Philbin Beach
at about the time of the crash was REALLY caused by
someone shooting rockets into the air from Falmouth?
And if he would have ever made such an absurd retraction,
then how is it that no other news outlet ANYWHERE has, after
July 17th, repeated the reporter's sighting ANYWAY, considering
that news outlets feed off of one another (e.g. WCVB-TV said
this, and UPI said this, and so on)? How is it that this
media magical disappearing act could have been pulled off so
neatly, without ONE SINGLE news outlet breaking the code of
silence?

And so, we come, full circle, to that unnamed, unidentifiable,
unapproachable reporter: the unreporting reporter.
If his retraction was so widely recognized throughout all
the cutting rooms of mass medialand ... then why in the hell
can NO ONE be allowed to speak with him, much less, even find
out his name?

And how does the Vineyard Gazette KNOW that its reporter
definitely saw fireworks off of Falmouth, and not a "big white
flash" off of Philbin Beach? Did the reporter later reflect on
his sighting, replay his mental videotape, and say to himself,
"Gee, that wasn't a big white flash in the sky off of Philbin
Beach. It was rockets shooting up in the air off of Falmouth."
Is that how the human mind functions? You just go back and
replay the tape in your head, and see what actually happened?
Or, did someone ELSE tell the Vineyard Gazette that the reporter
saw fireworks off of Falmouth at around the time of the Kennedy
plane's plunge into the ocean? -- and that they had better stick
to that story!

Furthermore, did you ever hear of anyone going "back to school"
before August 5th (the date of my phone call to the Gazette)?
Doesn't school start in September?

And furthermore still -- someone notified me that Falmouth is in
the opposite direction from Philbin Beach. The UPI report indeed
stated that the Vineyard Gazette reporter sighted the "big white
flash" off of Philbin Beach. Well, that's easy enough to
check out. Is Philbin Beach near the line-of-sight of Falmouth?
Would you check it out for me and let me know? Thanks.

John DiNardo jdinardo@idt.net