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JIM DiEUGENIO SAID:
Hoover and Johnson then switched to the back up plan: scare the heck out of Warren with threats of atomic annihliation. Therefore pressuring him to go with the Krazy Kid Oswald portrait.
Warren did so in spades. To the point that Liebeler told Odio that heck, even if we find evidence of a conspiracy--which she certainly was--Warren told us to shove it under the rug.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Anyone who could possibly believe that Wesley J. Liebeler said any such thing to Sylvia Odio is a bigger fool than the fools who think Greer shot Kennedy. (And that's a pretty big fool.)
Can anyone even imagine (for even one second) Liebeler being so stupid as to say something like that to a witness like Odio? It's insane, absurd, and downright ridiculous. It never happened. But DiEugenio is just gullible enough to believe that it did. (What a surprise.)
JIM DiEUGENIO SAID:
...this necessitated Plan B for Edgar and Lyndon: Oswald as the misfit loner.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
No need for any "Plan B" in this regard, Jimbo. Oswald was a misfit loner.
I wonder how telling the truth about the assassin somehow equals: Hoover's in on a cover-up?
Only in the wacky and wonderful world of JFK conspiracy theorists could such an equation be justified.
JIM DiEUGENIO SAID:
When Simkin let the fruity Von Pein on this site, it was a signal that he wanted bread and circuses for all.
Anyone who reads my book will know that this passage about Liebeler saying this is footnoted to Sylvia Odio's interview with Fonzi for the Church Committee. (Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, p. 352) Fonzi replied to her, "Liebeler said that?" Odio then said, "Yes sir I could swear on that."
Now, if you follow this footnote the reader will see that I backed this up with a second source. When I was writing the book I practiced what I preach. I tried to follow the journalistic rule that for any major claim I would have two independent sources. Well in my footnotes you will see the following: "Liebeler was referring to a speech Warren gave the Commission staff at their first meeting of January 20, 1964. In a memo by Melvin Eisenberg, he writes that Warren said, "This was an occasion on which actual conditions had to override general principles....He placed emphasis on the importance of quenching rumors, and precluding future speculations such as that which has surrounded the death of Lincoln." (Ibid, p. 446)
So, in other words, when DVP launches into his usual invective over a fact he does not like, he is really calling all these names about Odio, whose credibility was even vouched for by his icon, Vince Bugliosi. And this is backed up by Eisenberg's memo.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That passage in Eisenberg's memo, of course, doesn't even come close to justifying or confirming this ridiculous "Sweep All Conspiracy Under The Rug" spin put on it by conspiracy clowns like Jimmy DiEugenio:
"To the point that Liebeler told Odio that heck, even if we find evidence of a conspiracy--which she certainly was--Warren told us to shove it under the rug." -- Jimmy D.
It's just one additional example (among hundreds) that illustrates how totally inept many conspiracy theorists are at being able to reasonably and properly evaluate ANY of the evidence or statements connected with the JFK assassination.
The very last people in the world who should be examining the JFK murder case are the members of the "Anybody But Oswald" fraternity, such as James DiEugenio. The members of that silly club should be thoroughly embarrassed to even show up at any JFK forum. But, amazingly, they aren't embarrassed in the slightest.
Regarding Earl Warren:
Vince Bugliosi said it very nicely when he made this rational observation (which DiEugenio and company will, and have, totally ignored, of course):
"The conspiracy theorists have converted Katzenbach's and Warren's desire to squelch rumors that had no basis in fact into Katzenbach's and Warren's desire to suppress the facts of the assassination. But how could Katzenbach and Warren have known way back then that they had to spell out that only false rumors, rumors without a stitch of evidence to support them, had to be squelched for the benefit of the American public? How could they have known back then that there would actually be people like Mark Lane who would accuse men like Warren, Gerald Ford, John Cooper, and so on...of getting in a room and all deciding to deliberately suppress, or not even look for, evidence of a conspiracy to murder the president...or that there would be intelligent, rational, and sensible people of the considerable stature of Michael Beschloss and Evan Thomas who would decide to give their good minds a rest and actually buy into this nonsense?" -- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 367-368 of "Reclaiming History"
JIM DiEUGENIO SAID:
Bugliosi writes in his introduction that he will state the case as the critics would like. Yet he did not include this [Eisenberg] memo nor the memo of Fonzi's interview with Odio. Why?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It's quite possible that Bugliosi didn't even know about Fonzi's interview with Sylvia Odio. But even if he did know about it, Odio's statement to Fonzi about Liebeler coming right out and telling her (a witness in the case) that Earl Warren had given the Warren Commission staff instructions to sweep all evidence of conspiracy under the carpet is just too absurd to believe for more than one millisecond. And Mr. Bugliosi would undoubtedly agree with me on that point.
But the Eisenberg memo is most certainly mentioned by Vince in "Reclaiming History", in multiple places. Maybe you should have read Vincent's tome a little better yourself, eh Jimmy Boy?
Let's have a look:
"Except for the moments right after the assassination when no one knew who the killer or killers were or whether a massive domestic or international conspiracy was involved, the closest reference to national security being an issue is a February 17, 1964, memo to the file (far, far less known than the Katzenbach memo) by Warren Commission assistant counsel Melvin Eisenberg about the first meeting, on January 20, 1964, that Chief Justice Warren had with his staff.
Eisenberg quotes Warren as telling his staff that when President Johnson first asked him to head up the investigation (November 29), Warren said that the president spoke "of rumors of the most exaggerated kind...circulating in this country and overseas. Some rumors went as far as attributing the assassination to a faction within the Government wishing to see the presidency assumed by President Johnson. Others, if not quenched, could conceivably lead the country into a war which would cost forty million lives. No one could refuse to do something which might help to prevent such a possibility."
Of course, there is nothing in Warren's address to his staff about suppressing the truth to avoid a war. Indeed, as indicated earlier, Eisenberg goes on to say that Warren "emphasized that the Commission had to determine the truth, whatever that might be."
Naturally, as with his surgery on the Katzenbach memo, Mark Lane, in Plausible Denial, told his readers only about the "war" part of the Eisenberg memo, deleting all reference to Warren telling his staff they had to find the truth whatever it might be." -- "Reclaiming History"; Page 367
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There is also the following passage in Vincent Bugliosi's book, which also deals with the Eisenberg memo. And everyone please note the fact that Jim DiEugenio, when he quoted from the Eisenberg memo earlier in this Education Forum thread, has done the exact same thing that Mark Lane did in his book (as Bugliosi said). Jimbo has conveniently omitted the last sentence in this quote below (the part in italics, which is also in italics, for emphasis, in Mr. Bugliosi's book), although DiEugenio does mention it in this post, but Jimmy then goes on to completely dismiss it as merely being "CYA" on the part of Earl Warren (yeah, right, Jim):
"On January 20, 1964, Chief Justice Warren met with the Warren Commission staff at their first formal staff meeting. In discussing the role of the Commission with the staff, "Warren placed emphasis on the importance of quenching rumors, and precluding further speculation such as that which has surrounded the death of Lincoln. He emphasized that the Commission had to determine the truth, whatever that might be." * -- "Reclaiming History"; Page 344
* The above text in Bugliosi's book is followed by source note #118, which leads to this source reference:
118. JFK Document 015041, Memorandum to the file of Warren Commission staff member Melvin Eisenberg, February 17, 1964.
Here is the Eisenberg memo for everyone to see (and for everyone to see what DiEugenio decided to leave out when he first brought this memo up).
And there is also this important excerpt from Page 2 of the Eisenberg memo that I doubt you'll ever see written in any conspiracy book:
"He [Earl Warren] therefore set a target date [for the release of the Warren Report] of June 1, with the understanding that the Commission could not issue a report until it was satisfied that it had reached the truth."
To repeat:
Melvin Eisenberg's last words on Page 1 of that two-page 2/17/64 memo are these words:
"He emphasized that the Commission had to determine the truth, whatever that might be."
Those words throw a monkey wrench into DiEugenio's theory that Eisenberg's memo somehow corroborates and supports some kind of half-baked idea that Earl Warren was the chairman of a cover-up Commission, bent on NOT finding the truth. Doesn't it, Jimbo?
Jim DiEugenio and Mark Lane should team up. They seem to be birds of a feather.
David Von Pein
February 2013
