Moderated discussion of Destiny Betrayed 2nd Ed

[Jim DiEugenio]

Thanks Nathaniel.

That is a part of the book I think is really important. Phelan was such a liar. And he was so mad at me when he first got in contact with me because I raised questions about him the first time around.

So I asked him directly, did you ever inform on any story to an intel agency and/or give them parts of your work product. He said no, the inveterate BSer.

So then I got from the ARRB two instances of him doing just that.

He still tried to deny it.

That is when I realized he was in a state of denial about who he was. And I cut off communications with him.

He then sent me a letter by certified mail. I then decided he was not just in denial he was deluded.

He had spent a lifetime building himself up as a real journalist. But in the nineties with the ARRB, and the discoveries about Loomis, it all came crashing down. I am pretty sure if I recall, that Phelan also worked with another Loomis protege, Posner. He gave him an interview for Case CLosed.

Anyway, we are getting ahead of the scheduled moderated discussion. But as you can see, there is a lot to talk about.

DO you want to set a day and time Magda?

[Jim DiEugenio]

I just learned that the show I am doing with a Toronto station tonight is simulcast over the web.

So no matter where you live, you can hear it live. Just go to Zoomer Radio at am740.ca and you can hear it live.

[Jan Klimkowski]

From Jim DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed:

it turned out that Phelan had a very special function for his backers. Most reporters in town to cover the proceedings rented a hotel room. But not Phelan. Phelan rented a house.(16) Why would he do sucha a thing if he was not there to write a story? Becuase his was a much bigger assignment. His job was to put the spin on each day's testimony for the residing press corps, thereby controlling the entire national media reportage on the Shaw trial. How did he do such a thing? He would invite all the reporters over to his rented house at the end of each day. He would then serve them refreshments and snacks. He then would spell out the next day's story on a chalkboard. This is how some of the most interesting and important testimoney rpresented during the proceedings got covrered up by the media. On the day the Zapruder film was shown, Phelan had his work cut out for him. For the repeated showing of the film--depicting Kennedy's body being violently knocked back-- really shook up the press. It appeared Garrison was right, it was a conspiracy. But when they arrived at Phelan's rented house, the reporter pulled a proverbial rabbit out of his hat. He took out his chalboard, raised up his piece of chalk, and he began to outline the dynamics of the socalled 'jet-effect' explanation for the action on the film. That is, if Oswald was firing from behind Kennedy, why does Kennedy's body recoil with tremendous force to the rear of the car? What Phelan and the jet effect proffer is that somehow the spurting of blood and brains served as ta jet that drove Kennedy's head backward with overpowering force.(17) This is how determined Phelan was to keep a lid on what came out of the trial. One can only assume where the reporter got his quick course in physics to dream up such a theory in a matter of hours.

Jim - that's simply outstanding work.

I've yet to see a reliable source for the notorious DCIA Colby claim that "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

If Colby did say it, it was a lie.

A braggadocio.

Here is my own experience of working in MSM.

There are key editors who are witting Mockingbirds, acting as gatekeepers, ensuring that stories which can damage national security are either toned down or pulled.

There are journalists who are witting Mockingbirds, in the direct pay and influence of intelligence organs.

There are journalists who are unwitting Mockingbirds, for instance through relying on a source who, unknown to the reporter, is an intelligence asset.

There are lazy and unconfident journalists, who don't trust their judgement to form interpretations about the flux of fast moving events, and who welcome "authoritative guidance" about the "true nature" of the story. They are gnats swarming to cow shit.

There are journalists who are dedicated to finding out the truth and getting it published, no matter how unpalatable it may be.

After watching Zapruder, any proper journalist should have turned to independent ballistics, trauma and film experts to enable them to report a considered and informed interpretation of this shocking evidence.

Instead, it appears there was a gatekeeper in place, with a pre-prepared scientific theory.

The witting Mockingbirds would have been delighted.

The lazy and unconfident hacks thrilled at being able to file their copy and explain away the distressing evidence of Zapruder.

To coin a phrase: CASE CLOSED.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Thanks Jan.

I think that is about right as a cross section.

The key is to have the crucial editors who can then recruit the willing and useful tools like Phelan.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

The lesson of Phelan is very medium is messagey. The CIA had been planning their House in New Orleans not too long after Eric Burdon. For them the corporate nature of the media was not centralized enough.

It had to be even more centralized.

They needed to all the big media companies to not just be big and members of the club. All of their eyeballs had to hit the exact same mock ups under the same roof. It is very instructive to note VARIETIES of centralization and decentralization, even within the context of the this old 3 network, Time and Newsweek world. [yet for many who have not gone back and read daily papers from the 1960s will be shocked when they discover real liberalism as opposed to todays The Republican Wing of the Democratic Party to paraphrase some old Democrat, long ago planecrashed (verb).

Contrast this with todays internet and cable world. Not only is the cable "left" really designed to take us further right via quid pro quo manipulation, but even internet sites are considered too dangerous to be free of professional lingering, and split enders.

Critical mass sure matters. Nobody will start conversations unless they think enough people around the water cooler share the basic common denominator to initiate the conversation.

Clearly a lot of effort went into a very policed media homogeneity in Phelan-Helms House.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Let me add something here to further show just how controlled the media was on Garrison. Its something I forgot to put in the book and I should have.

See, it wasn't enough to put certain assets down there to smear JG and to control the daily spin on the trial.

To exercise total and maximum effect on the story you also had to stop Garrison from getting his news out. As i note in my book, this happened in New Orleans when two reporters were moved out of the States Item coverage of JG.

But something I should have added was this: the FBI went to the AP dispatch office in New York in late 1967, early 1968. They told the dispatcher there, a guy named Jim West, not to carry any of Garrison's press releases from New Orleans over the wire. I know this to be true since I interviewed the guy back in 1995, but also because I saw many of Garrison's press releases in his files. I don't recall any of them being carried by AP and UPI.

And if the FBI did this at AP, then you know it happened at UPI also.

This is how determined Washington was to completely mold the story about Garrison and marginalize him off the map.

Well, I keep on giving away more stuff I wanted to keep for the moderated discussion.

Which is going to be when Magda?

[Jim DiEugenio]

I will be on The Conspiracy Show tonight at 11 PM EST.

THe host, Richard Syrett liked last week's show a lot. So tonight we will discuss Oswald, with a focus on New Orleans.

It is at 740 AM, Zoomer Radio. But its Podcast from their web site if you are outside the 50, 000 watt range.

[John Mooney]

I'm about halfway through your book Jim, I can't put it down. Lots of things I didn't know before. The part about Otepka is very eye opening. The CIA marked his name on the list SECRET. How can anyone not think there is more to Oswald's relationship with the CIA?

I saw you footnoted John Newman for that, I must get his book next.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Oswald and the CIA is one of the most disgracefully ignored books in the canon.

Another source for the Otepka material is an article Lisa Pease did for Probe magazine.

[John Mooney]

Jim,

I just read the part about Richard Case Nagell being found and arrested with an "Aleksei Hidell" tourist card on him.

How solid is that?

And if it's solid then isn't that case closed against LN?