26-07-2017, 05:52 AM
I'm just starting to wade through the government's new release of previously classified JFK assassination documents, now that the National Archives computer is working. Some documents seem not very informative except for what they show about the FBI. These show how the FBI seemed more interested in policing and suppressing dissent from the official version than in actually investigating the case. Examples are reports from infiltrators of small leftwing meetings in the U.S. that mention the assassination was discussed but mostly just list the names of those attending the meetings, hardly or not at all saying what was discussed (though in one case it's mentioned that someone blamed right-wingers for the shooting). As I write in my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE, MY SEARCH FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER J. D. TIPPIT, this pattern was already evident in the previously released documents:
A vivid illustration of the federal government's heavy-handed eagerness to shut down any genuine media investigation of the Tippit shooting and any possible role he may have played in the assassination plot -- especially if the publication was an American outlet -- can be found in a document in the National Archives about an incident that occurred less than three weeks after the officer's death. The FBI contacted the managing editor of Chicago's American, Luke Carroll, after Maggie Daly's column on December 7, 1963, raised the possibility that Jack Ruby knew Oswald and Tippit, and that Tippit had botched an assignment to silence Oswald. The FBI's Chicago Special Agent in Charge reported to J. Edgar Hoover on December 12, "CARROLL feels that the items should not have been printed, especially the portion which cast aspersions on Dallas police officer TIPPIT." That same day, Daly ran a retraction and stated, "Actually, as is true of all Americans, we admire Officer Tippit and we sent a small donation to his widow."
That incident of suppression of a Tippit inquiry by Chicago's American and many other examples of direct FBI interference with the media were revealed in the 1977-78 release of FBI documents on the assassination, which roused even the Washington Post to criticize the FBI for seeming "more interested in investigating the motives and affiliations of its critics than in pursuing contradictions offered by the evidence at the scene of the crime." Mark Lane and other critics have also charged that FBI agents engaged in surveillance of their activities and other forms of harassment. The FBI's surveillance of Lane's speeches and movements was confrmed in a February 24, 1964, memorandum from Warren Commission assistant counsel Howard P. Willens to J. Lee Rankin, which also indicated that the FBI was forwarding its reports on Lane to the commission.
A vivid illustration of the federal government's heavy-handed eagerness to shut down any genuine media investigation of the Tippit shooting and any possible role he may have played in the assassination plot -- especially if the publication was an American outlet -- can be found in a document in the National Archives about an incident that occurred less than three weeks after the officer's death. The FBI contacted the managing editor of Chicago's American, Luke Carroll, after Maggie Daly's column on December 7, 1963, raised the possibility that Jack Ruby knew Oswald and Tippit, and that Tippit had botched an assignment to silence Oswald. The FBI's Chicago Special Agent in Charge reported to J. Edgar Hoover on December 12, "CARROLL feels that the items should not have been printed, especially the portion which cast aspersions on Dallas police officer TIPPIT." That same day, Daly ran a retraction and stated, "Actually, as is true of all Americans, we admire Officer Tippit and we sent a small donation to his widow."
That incident of suppression of a Tippit inquiry by Chicago's American and many other examples of direct FBI interference with the media were revealed in the 1977-78 release of FBI documents on the assassination, which roused even the Washington Post to criticize the FBI for seeming "more interested in investigating the motives and affiliations of its critics than in pursuing contradictions offered by the evidence at the scene of the crime." Mark Lane and other critics have also charged that FBI agents engaged in surveillance of their activities and other forms of harassment. The FBI's surveillance of Lane's speeches and movements was confrmed in a February 24, 1964, memorandum from Warren Commission assistant counsel Howard P. Willens to J. Lee Rankin, which also indicated that the FBI was forwarding its reports on Lane to the commission.