The Truth about the WC at Last

[Jim DiEugenio]

Its interesting what SImkin leaves out.

The first declassified files released by the KGB revealed nothing about Hiss being a spy.

The Venona transcripts have been seriously questioned by Kai Bird as I said.

So now, SImkin backs up Weinstein by saying that there were other files in the USSR which confirmed Hede Massing's claims about Hiss.

What does Simkin leave out?

1. That Weinstein's documents are in the worst tradition of check book journalism. HIs publisher paid six figures for them.

2. Weinstein did not let anyone else see these documents.

3. His own translator disagreed with what Weinstein wrote about them.

4. Weinstein has been successfully challenged in the past for writing things his interview subjects say they did not say. And he was also sued and was forced to settle.

5. Anyone who presents Hede Massing as a credible witness under these circumstances is not playing kosher pool. Only someone like Weinstein would do such a thing.

As Albert points out, I am still waiting for Simkin to explain why the FBI had to fake a typewriter if Hiss was guilty.

That doesn't mean anything to him?

[Albert Doyle]

I agree with Simkin that the FBI files in the Hiss case probably reflect on the FBI files in the Kennedy case - only not in the way that he might assume. I think EF shows a good example of how suggested objective tolerance of opposing viewpoints can be skewed in the favor of liars. Still it is better to have one such website to see the material of the other side in combination with a Lone Nutter restricted site for the overall best view.

I'm guessing Simkin won't respond to DiEugenio's last post now that he's gotten rid of him.


If the DiEugenio version is accurate then America truly is a dirty Gestapo-like country that frames innocent political victims while claiming to be the great protector of the individual and his constitutional rights.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Simkin did offer a kind of flip last word when asked as to what he really meant by the comparison of Hiss with the WC.

He said that Hiss, according to Weinstein, should have been arrested years before. But somehow the FBI fell down in their duties to hunt down communists.

Can you believe this? Hoover was not militant enough against commies. Mr Palmer Raids somehow was getting soft on reds.

The problem for both the FBI and Justice was simple. When Chambers first went to Adolph Berle in 1939, there was no mention of espionage according to Berle's notes at State Department. In fact, at that time, Chambers did not even say the several government officials he saw at meetings were communists. In other words, there was no crime. Chambers simply accused Hiss, and other government officials, of being at first, interested observers out to gather ideas, then communist sympathizers, and later, as his story endlessly changed, party members. That pattern--of there being no espionage-- continued for several years. In fact, Chambers specifically denied there was any espionage as late as August of 1946. And he insisted that he left the communist party in December of 1937. He said the same before HUAC in the summer of 1948. In other words, for ten years, Chambers said there was no espionage involved and he left the party in December of 1937.

It was only after Hiss denied his association with the communist party that Nixon, a member of HUAC, now went to work. He prepared a report entitled "Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the United States Government." This despite the fact that, for ten years, Chambers never mentioned any espionage, in fact, he specifically denied it. Nixon now went to work making it appear that Chambers had accused Hiss of espionage. When, in fact, he had not.

Therefore, it was only now that Chambers--after forgetting about it for ten years-- produced some documents and the infamous Pumpkin Papers. After being visited by Nixon, and Nixon leaving town, Chambers deliberately moved some documents to a pumpkin and delayed his "discovery" of them to night. Nixon had this "discovery at nightime" scene photographed by the media, as he also had himself photographed as he returned from abroad to bolster Chambers' newest story. In other words, this was all rehearsed stagecraft for the cameras . It was these documents which Chambers and Nixon now said that Hiss and his wife retyped, and this contained the core of this newly created charge of espionage. Except, without the typwriter, there was nothing to link them to Hiss. So now the FBI--which according to Weinstein was protecting Hiss-- went about creating a typewriter. And they cleverly planted it on the defense, to make it seem as if Hiss--who thought the typewriter would acquit him-- was incriminating himself.

But there was one problem which Nixon overlooked. Some of the documents were dated as late as April of 1938. If Chambers had left he communist party in late 1937, how could that be so? Why would he still be spying for them? So now, after saying no less than five times that he left in 1937, Chambers changed his story again. To coincide with these new documents he forgot about, he now said he left the party in April of 1938. Does this not strongly suggest the documents themselves were planted? For if they were not, Chambers would have reviewed them before one of his interviews with Berle and the FBI, and he would have kept his story straight.

And its on this ground that Simkin, and his hero Weinstein, say the FBI should have arrested Hiss previously? Hiss and about 6-7 others, including asst. Treasury Secretary Harry Dexter White, who Chambers said had attended communist meetings? I guess Weinstein wanted Hoover to go back to the Palmer Raids days. If you were accused of attending a communist meeting, you go to jail. Even on the word of someone who was as nutty and unreliable as Chambers.

Finally, what the heck does this have to do with the JFK case? Is Simkin saying the FBI should have arrested Oswald in advance of the assassination? For what? Being an agent provocateur for the CIA and an FBI informant? For going to Mexico City and meeting with Kostikov? When in fact, most observers think that was nothing but paper mache? In fact, as John Newman so finely elucidates, it was part of the plot.

I have never thought much of Simkin as a JFK researcher. But the above makes me wonder about his abilities as a historian also.

[Dawn Meredith]

Who, in 1964, was going to say that the CIA killed Kennedy?

Certainly not LBJ's close friend, and it was LBJ who personally cajoled Russell into being on the WC.

But if you read Dick Russell's book, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, or the memoirs of Alfreda Scobey, you will see that Russell's private inquiry was much more skeptical about the case and much more incisive than the Troika was. I mean if you read that aforementioned questioning of Marina you will see that it comes as as close to anything in the WC volumes to saying that Oswald was an agent, and Marina was a counter agent. And Scobey was blunt about Marina's perjury to Russell. And the fact that in a real legal forum, her testimony would likely not be allowed.

I have never held out Russell as any kind of role model or political hero. But there is little or no doubt that when it comes to the collection of louts, stiffs, and criminals on the WC, his performance at the time--boycotting the Commission for the most part, threatening to resign, and running his own private inquiry--was the best of the seven.

As per Schweiker, look, this was after Garrison. Just as Russell's enlightment about the treacherous last meeting of the WC was in 1968. These guys saw JG being tarred and feathered in public for saying what he did: that it was an inside job.

Bob Tanenbaum told an audience in Chicago, and myself personally, what Schweiker told him in private quarters. He handed him Gaeton Fonzi's file on Bishop/Phillips. As he did so, he said words to the effect, The CIA killed President Kennedy.

I mean, just add it up, if Schweiker was hot on the trail of Phillips --and he was--then how could that lead to Fidel Castro? But he was not going to say that in public. Too careful.

I have an old video called The Killing of JFK. It is a documentary that I have not seen in many years but Schweiker is featured a lot and he never mentions any Castro did it bs. Keep in mind that he and Gary Hart studied the JFK assassination as a sub committee to the Church Committee investigating CIA abuses. This was in the mid 70's. These guys -Hart, Schweiker, Tanenbum etc., knew the truth. And they were going after it til the HSCA got derailed by the press and Blakey.

[Dawn Meredith]

Off-Topic: Simkin just showed his true colors on the EF by saying the FBI files might prove the Commission correct. Now I understand the context of DiEugenio's booting.

Which FBI files do you and he refer? The one's about Boggs?!

I just read that thread.

Simkin is actually writing about the Hiss case. What he is saying is that the Venona files--he calls them NSA taps--were accurate about Hiss. And therefore he was really a spy and Chambers was right.

Kai Bird has done some very good work on these Venona taps, and he shows they do not prove what people like Weinstein say they do.

Further, using Thomas Powers,(Richard Helms' official biographer) as Simkin does, to back Weinstein, is sort of like using Hugh Aynesworth to back up someone like James Phelan on the JFK case.

Read this article about Weinstein, its clearly revealing about his methods. His publisher paid the KGB for access to Soviet Cold War docs. And then he would not let anyone else see them. His translator then disagreed with how Weinstein described them in his book, The Haunted Wood:

http://www.thenation.com/article/archive...-weinstein

Further, even though he promised to give all his tapes and transcripts of interviews from his 1978 book on Hiss to the Truman Library, as of the date of that article, 2004, he still had not done so.

And I cannot help but note how Simkin casts off the fine film from 1978 about the Hiss case. The climax of that film is one of the jurors being shown the documents proving that the FBI planted the wrong tyepwriter, on the prosecution to connect Hiss to the ridiculous documents Chambers said he got from Hiss. THe defense never challenged the typewriter in court. If they had, the case would have exploded right then and there and Hiss would have been granted a mistrial. Because some think the FBI actually manufactured the typewriter.

I don't know how he can say the FBI was protecting Hiss. The declassified record shows that the FBI served as a private investigation service for the prosecution. And the typewriter was not the only thing they faked and planted. There were also records of a car sale that Chambers said he and Hiss exchanged. These records were later exposed as ersatz and very likely faked by the Bureau.

To compare the Hiss case with the JFK case is really far out there. They are not at all similar. Everything we get from the FBI shows more and more that Oswald was a patsy. Including the substitution of CE 399.

I am not aware of this new stuff he is talking about released by the FBI. But at this late date, I would look upon it with a jaundiced eye. And to say Chambers is now supported is, to me, pretty hard to accept. Chambers told so many outright lies on the stand, its breathtaking. One of the best books on that case is by the English barrister, The Earl Jowitt. It was one of the first out, in 1953. He exposed Chambers as a pathological liar to such an extent that it permanently impacted my view of that case.

Finally, John ignores the fact that Weinstein was not just exposed as using faulty research, and having his witnesses later deny what he wrote about them, but he later got his ticket punched. The Republicans made him chief archivist at NARA ( in other words he held sway over the JFK collection) and he worked with the CIA through his own group, the Center for Democracy, with the National Endowment for Democracy. This latter was the group that has spent tens of millions in places like Ukraine to ring the USSR with NATO allies. Clearly, his book was a put up job for career advancement. Which he got.

Hiss may or may not have been a spy. But the case is much more ambiguous than he depicts it.

OTOH, Oswald had nothing to do with the killing of President Kennedy. And we can prove that today in spades, nine ways to Sunday.

"And I cannot help but note how Simkin casts off the fine film from 1978 about the Hiss case. The climax of that film is one of the jurors being shown the documents proving that the FBI planted the wrong tyepwriter, on the prosecution to connect Hiss to the ridiculous documents Chambers said he got from Hiss. THe defense never challenged the typewriter in court. If they had, the case would have exploded right then and there and Hiss would have been granted a mistrial. Because some think the FBI actually manufactured the typewriter."


Bingo. Jim I have been trying to find a copy of this great film forever. I even went to a place here in town about 20 years ago now that specializes in rare films. To no avail. I saw it at the theatre and was convinced that Hiss had been framed. Nixon really had it on for good looking East Coast Harvard- educated guys like JFK and Hiss. A personal jealousy and vendetta.
Nixon himself is a character study in dysfunction. I recall an article in Rolling Stone in about 73 with a copy of a note Tricky Dick wrote to his mother and he signed it "your loving dog Dick". I though, "wow, this guy has always been sick".

Dawn

[Jim DiEugenio]

Thanks Dawn.

Couple of corrections: the film was released in 1980 not 1978. The look on that juror's face when he read the documents about the typewriter was worth the price of the movie. It is incredible that you cannot get this film anywhere today. What has happened to this country? You cannot get documentaries and you cannot get foreign films anymore. Some guy wrote a book a few years ago entitled, "Not Coming to a Theater Near You". That is what Netflix did to America.

Second, the typewriter was actually planted on the defense not the prosecution. It was clever how they did it. If i recall correctly, Donald Hiss actually found the typewriter after a very long search for it. The Hisses had given it to friends or servants of theirs. And it had been passed along to others. The FBI had 30 agents looking for it BEFORE Donald Hiss began. What probably happened is they switched the typewriters before Donald Hiss got it. BTW, the expert for the defense on the typewriter was Elizabeth McCarthy. She felt that the Pumpkin Papers may for may not have been typed on the machine in court. She was closer to the truth than the FBI was. BTW, she was the woman who testified for Garrison at the trial of Clay Shaw that Shaw had signed the ledger at the VIP Lounge as Clay Bertrand. Pretty good eh?

When Bobby Kennedy reviewed the Hiss case, he hit the roof when he discovered that the FBI never had the typewriter. This is one of the things that made him lose a lot of respect for both Hoover and the FBI.

Before he went to prison, Hiss said, "I am confident that in the future the full facts of how Whittaker Chambers was able to carry out forgery by typewriter will be disclosed." In retrospect, it wasn't Chambers. It was the combination of Nixon and the FBI. (BTW, that is a great quote you dug up about Nixon referring to himself as a dog.)

Again, Hiss may or may not have been at some communist meetings. He may have been a pinko. He may or may not even have have been some kind of spy. But for Simkin to make this simply a matter of fact--that he was a spy--and to somehow compare that late announcement with the JFK case, that is just a non sequitir.

[Lauren Johnson]

OTOH, Oswald had nothing to do with the killing of President Kennedy. And we can prove that today in spades, nine ways to Sunday.

Without having read many books, I've never been able to positively say that Oswald was not involved in the death of JFK. He certainly did not handle any guns; he certainly was set up to be a patsy. Granted Marina said he loved JFK. But how do we prove that he was not some way in on the plot as a means place him at the TSBD? Just askin'.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Well, what I said was Oswald had nothing to do with killing Kennedy. Meaning, he did not fire any shots in Dealey Plaza.

As far as him manipulated into being at the wrong place at the wrong time, well yes, that may certainly be true.

[Drew Phipps]

Remember, too, the "confidential informant" named "Lee" whose tip to the FBI caused the detention of 2 of 4 suspicious individuals (and also one lone nut) in Chicago, and led to JFK cancelling his trip there at the last minute. There is more than one way for Oswald to be "in on" a plot (i.e. have some foreknowledge). Whether or not he was (the/a) shooter, you do have to find a plausible explanation for his anomalous behaviors, both prior to, and after, the assassination.

[Lauren Johnson]

Well, what I said was Oswald had nothing to do with killing Kennedy. Meaning, he did not fire any shots in Dealey Plaza.

As far as him manipulated into being at the wrong place at the wrong time, well yes, that may certainly be true.

Thanks, Jim. Douglass in JFKU is reaching when he suggests that when the Chicago SS was tipped off about a plot by a "Lee," it was LHO trying to prevent the murder of JFK.