Half a century too late, and still nowhere near as understanding of this case as he should be, but Warren Commission attorney David Slawson, in a Politico story published yesterday, admits the Warren Commission got it wrong.
Jim Hargrove Wrote:Is the mainstream press stonewall finally crumbling?
Jim
Answer: no.
When I saw who wrote this article, I had low expectations, and the article failed to meet them.
In essence - The article says that the CIA covered up that they knew Oswald & unknown conspirators were possibly going to kill Kennedy. Something that just doesn't stand up today.
I'm sure Jim D will be along soon with a much more comprehensive demolition of the article.
Funny how the release of this article coincides with David Joseph's work on the Mexico trip and the many inconsistencies in the tickets/witnesses. Slawson's idea that "Mexicans talked Oswald into shooting JFK" is predicated on a finding that Oswald made the Mexico trip as alleged.
Also, even if Slawson didn't see all of Hoover's FBI memos, It was apparently known to the CIA and Hoover and even LBJ that someone was impersonating Oswald in Mexico. Documents to this effect have been public for a great many years. Curious that Slawson's confidence in the WC Report has remained rock-solid for all these decades till the eve of the 2017 wave of declassifications.
"All that is necessary for tyranny to succeed is for good men to do nothing." (unknown)
James Tracy: "There is sometimes an undue amount of paranoia among some conspiracy researchers that can contribute to flawed observations and analysis."
Gary Cornwell (Dept. Chief Counsel HSCA): "A fact merely marks the point at which we have agreed to let investigation cease."
Alan Ford: "Just because you believe it, that doesn't make it so."
Yes, Shenon's book basically supports the official story plus a "benign cover up."
Here's a key quote from the article: "Slawson is not describing the sort of elaborate, far-fetched assassination plot that most conspiracy theorists like to claim occurred, with a roster of suspects including the Mafia, Texas oilmen, anti-Castro Cuban exiles, southern segregationists, elements of the CIA and FBI, and even President Johnson. Slawson did not believe in 1964, and does not believe now, that Fidel Castro or the leaders of the Soviet Union or of any other foreign government were involved in the president's murder. And he is certain that Oswald was the only gunman in Dealey Plaza."
Tracy Riddle Wrote:Yes, Shenon's book basically supports the official story plus a "benign cover up."
Here's a key quote from the article: "Slawson is not describing the sort of elaborate, far-fetched assassination plot that most conspiracy theorists like to claim occurred, with a roster of suspects including the Mafia, Texas oilmen, anti-Castro Cuban exiles, southern segregationists, elements of the CIA and FBI, and even President Johnson. Slawson did not believe in 1964, and does not believe now, that Fidel Castro or the leaders of the Soviet Union or of any other foreign government were involved in the president's murder. And he is certain that Oswald was the only gunman in Dealey Plaza."
It's worse than that, Tracey. In paragraph 3:-
Quote:The lawyers, most only a few years out of law school, would do the bulk of the commission's detective work in determining how and why the president had been killed.
There was no detective work, carried out by lawyers or anyone else on the Commission. There was certainly no work done to determine WHO killed Kennedy, and none to determine WHY. The WHO had been decided by Monday 24th November - as the Katzenbach memo shows - and the WHY was therefore immaterial and in fact any speculation was to be "cut off".
Slawson is right to have his doubts. Yes, the CIA obstructed the investigation - such as it was. But Slawson has come to entirely the wrong conclusions. I wonder which came first, Slawson's conclusions or Shenon's book?
Martin, that's been known since the '60s - that the WC's staff lawyers had no experience in criminal investigations, and did no real investigation of their own. They worked backward from the conclusion already reached by J. Edgar Hoover before the WC was even formed.
Lone-nutter Jim Moore actually admits this in his book CONSPIRACY OF ONE: "The Warren Commission, it should be clear, never really conducted an investigation. They began with a conclusion and then worked fairly carefully to ensure that the available facts fit the pre-ordained determination."
The "detective" work was done by the FBI. And since Hoover decided to go with the Oswald did it stuff within about 48 hours, the detective work was all stilted. And false.
Slawson did go to Mexico City align with Coleman. Their trip was suggested by Richard Helms.
The curious thing about it is that Win Scott played tapes of Oswald in the consulates there. Yet, the CIA claimed these had all been destroyed. Mr. Shenon, does this not create some problems for your nutty "Oswald did it for Castro" fantasy?
I went after Shenon's horrendous book when it came out in hardcover. The guy is the equivalent of a medium priced call girl. He really showed his true colors with the comment about the critics buying into a Torbitt Document type giant conspiracy. He never revealed that the guy who pushed him to write the book was Arlen Specter before he died. Nice going Phil, Arlen is smiling now.
Yes, I realise that it's not new - but it is indication of the depth of the shit that Shenon is shovelling. It's a total piece of crap - badly researched and with no intelligent independent thought behind it at all.
Just another limited hang-out diversion designed to buy time for the real dimensions of this government/CIA coup d'etat.
Shenon is a CIA disinformationist and court historian. Rule of thumb in Amerika: If you are reading them they are coopted and working for the government.
Quote:Slawson's most startling conclusion: He now believes that other people probably knew about Oswald's plans to kill the president and encouraged him, raising the possibility that there was a conspiracy in Kennedy's deathat least according to the common legal definition of the word conspiracy, which requires simply that at least two people plot to do wrongdoing. "I now know that Oswald was almost certainly not a lone wolf," Slawson says.
This is the first layer of the onion of the fall-back limited hang-out. It is designed to make the reader conclude Johnson was a patriot choosing to save them from WWIII and did the cover-up for their own good. That's how low the people who murdered JFK are. They will cover themselves and adapt JFK's personal attributes like wolves in sheep's clothing the whole time only doing it to cover their own murderous involvement and intent.
This article says conspiracy theories involving the CIA or right wingers are "far-fetched". No, they're not and the evidence squarely points in that direction. At what point do cheap con men like Shenon get embarrassed and feel ashamed for being the sleazy hustling propagandists they are?
This is just another fat lob for DiEugenio to shred. In CIA's media room full of mirrors middle America will say it was a good pitch.
On the same day we learn that the tapes were both in Dallas and reviewed as well as NOT in Dallas and only transcripts reviewed...
We also learn that INS inspector Maydon, whose name is stamped on the Oswald visa, claims that this man arrived in a car with another american couple (he also says another women was in the car at another point)
M/M Allen from Miami have their own special story which Bill Simpich discusses in his Mexico work...
Once in a while you get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right..... R. Hunter
