Nelson's LBJ Mastermind book

[Paul Rigby]

But all that is beside the point: What is Mr. DiEugenio's implicit principle? Apparently it is that no one dare work/volunteer on the JFK assassination research project unless s/he has already obtained a JFK assassination union card from her or his "betters," the gatekeepers on the construction project, based on the union hierarchy's opinion of the worthiness of the candidate. Relatives receive special treatment while interlopers like Nelson and Reynolds are unwelcome. Well, howdy doo! The problems with the DiEugenio principle/structure are immediately manifest, are they not? How, for example, would most seminars go? Only full professors would be allowed to make presentations or ask questions, while grad students and assistant professors are to shut up? Manuscripts would only be published for those with the proper credentials and connections as defined by the senior authors. Content? Posh!

The DiEugenio research system would be inevitably intellectually moribund, would it not? Interlopers, outsiders, "newbies" from other fields and walks of life, youngsters, frequently make the most penetrating remarks and analyses. The child who said, "But he isn't wearing anything at all," was right on despite a scandalous lack of credentials. Content trumps credentials, morning, noon and night.

DisIngenuous's manifest craving for a monopoly of authority and access is eerily reminiscent of the intellectual (and policy) catastrophe that was professional Sovietology:

"Sovietology failed because it operated in an environment that encouraged failure. Sovietologists of all political stripes were given strong incentives to ignore certain facts and focus their interest in other areas. I don't mean to suggest that there was a giant conspiracy at work; there wasn't. It was just that there were no careers to be had in questioning the conventional wisdom..."

Kevin Brennan, as quoted here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions...t_collapse

The desire to place beyond the pale certain lines of inquiry and evidence should come as no surprise to any student of the JFK assassination case. After all, it plays to the oldest principle of control in the book:

"Propaganda thrives best if there are no competing expressions of opinion to disturb the audience."*

*Thomas E. Mahl. Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44 (Brassey's, Inc., 1998), p. 103