Weisberg's trash-the-critics book 'Inside the Assassination Industry'

[Richard Booth]

Let me start by saying I do appreciate the real research Harold Weisberg did. One example: interviewing the printer of Oswald's FPCC leaflets and showing the man a photo-spread. The man identified four photos of KERRY THORNLEY as having been the individual who he said picked up Oswald's leaflets. Weisberg wrote that he showed this man about 40 photographs. I guess it is fortuitous that he included four pictures of Thornley. It's also important that Weisberg tape recorded the interview, as Bill Boxley, the former CIA agent and Clay Shaw defense asset on Jim Garrison's staff, attended this interview and later claimed the man made no identification of Thornley. Weisberg was able to produce his tape recording which proved the man did ID Thornley. This is but one small example of his real research efforts which bore fruit.

Now, to the downside. Harold Weisberg produces what can be accurately described as the worst prose you will ever find. His sentence structure is regularly overly convoluted. He makes his points with zero economy of language. He has no skill in making non-fiction even close to enjoyable to read. I think that he would have benefited from a co-author on his works with Harold serving as a primary researcher and producing an outline of what he wants to write and his co-author rendering the fine points using language that is precise and easy to parse. 'If only' ...

Having said all of that and given credit where it is due, there are some additional downsides on display in Harold Weisberg's unpublished manuscript "Inside the Assassination Industry." This manuscript is a semi-autobiographical account of his research career where Weisberg spends a lot of time both self-aggrandizing his own works while bashing all the critics other than himself (deserved or not.) Weisberg's material on Jim Garrison in the book is particularly inflammatory.

Weisberg does have some restraint as he does not 'name names' in some of the things he writes about. Or, I wonder, was Harold merely being careful to avoid a defamation suit (had the book been published)? I am thinking particularly about a passage where he accuses a researcher of stealing original copies of some of Weisberg's research materials (presumably FBI documents or other official 'JFK records').

However, I am now curious, having been sucked into this volume of trash talk. Does anyone happen to know who Weisberg is referring to vis-a-vis the document-theft he describes below? Is it Lifton?

Excerpt:

Some have used this freedom to steal only copies of my own work rather than make copies because when my only copies are stolen I lack that information and cannot use it or cite it. Of what without question was stolen, one theoretician in particular had a great interest in no copies existing, they embarrassed him that much. In the case of other thievery of again only copies, the obvious result was to prevent others writing on those aspects from competing with one of these successful exploiters of theories when he had an announced book on subject matter of these records"

The reason I suspect Weisberg is referring to Lifton here is that he's clearly referring to documents relating to one very specific thing where the document in question is central to a primary thesis of a book. My guess is 'autopsy or medical related documents-- this being one area where a single document (say, relating to the throat wound) would directly relate to the central thesis. Whereas had it been a document about anything else...say, Cuban exiles, or say, a document about E. Howard Hunt. In either of those two cases a single document on that wouldn't necessarily correlate directly to the central thesis of the work. With Lifton, pretty much any medical-related document can be said to relate directly to his central thesis.

I suppose its not really important but I admit I'm curious who Weisberg was writing about and afraid to name directly for fear of a libel or defamation suit.

If anyone is interested in this Weisberg pissing contest book it's available on hood.edu, and while it has some good information in it there is also a lot of aggressive and sometimes unwarranted derogatory remarks about others. I believe this field does have a lot of infighting, toxic venom, camps and cliques, provocateurs and turncoats like Gary Mack and Gus Russo, you have factions---all that is there as with any social community. This book just happens to be Harold Weisberg's view of all that. A view in which apparently he's the only researcher and writer to have produced anything that is either accurate or a result of good intentions.