BEN HOLMES SAID:
Tell us why Bugliosi PROVABLY lied about the Katzenbach memo on page 364.
My crystal ball tells me that you'll refuse to even admit that Bugliosi lied about what Katzenbach wrote.
[...]
Page 364 of 'Reclaiming History' shows Bugliosi lying... not his best lie, but a lie nonetheless.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Where's the "lie", Ben?
Are you saying that Bugliosi misquotes the Katzenbach memo?
Or are you saying that Vince was lying when he said, on page 364 of his book, that conspiracy theorists such as Mark Lane (who is referred to by Vince on
Page 364 as the "original dean of distortion"; LOL) have cited Katzenbach's 11/25/63 memorandum "out of context" (which I, too,
believe they have done)?
I have a feeling that Ben Holmes is equating SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION with LYING.
Gee, you'd think that Vince would have earned at least a bonus point or two from the conspiracy theorists when, on the same Page #364, Vince refers to Nicholas Katzenbach's famous November 25th memorandum as being "clumsily written".
ADDENDUM:
Holmes probably thinks Bugliosi lied when Vince didn't write out the ENTIRE first sentence in the Katzenbach memo, which says:
"It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now."
Holmes and other CTers no doubt think that Katzenbach's words "in a way which will satisfy people" indicate that Katz was up to no good and that Katz couldn't have cared less what the true "facts" were--he was only interested in pinning the whole thing on Oswald.
But I would disagree with such a mindset. To think that Katzenbach had such a "cover-up" mindset is just silly, particularly since he worked so closely with his boss, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Does anyone really believe that Nicholas Katzenbach would have wanted to aid or assist, in any way at all, a plot or cover-up that would have allowed the real killer or killers of RFK's brother to get away unpunished? Katzenbach merely wanted to keep FALSE rumors about Oswald and conspiracy from spreading.
Quoting Bugliosi some more on this matter:
"You can 't suppress evidence of a conspiracy if you release "all of the facts" to the American people. It was obvious that Katzenbach believed (and he, of course, was correct) that there was no evidence at that time, nor has any surfaced since, supporting the rumor of a Communist conspiracy, and the best way to dispel that rumor with the American public was by releasing all of the true facts then known." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 365 of "Reclaiming History"
GARRY PUFFER SAID:
Nick [Katzenbach], don't you think it's important that all the facts be made public without any thought as to how the public will regard it? If the public is not satisfied with the facts, so be it, but facts are facts. It's not really our job to put out the facts while worrying about whether the public will be satisfied with those facts, don't you agree? This is not a political issue, it's a criminal investigation.
I suggest you rewrite the first sentence of your memo. If you don't, it leaves you open to criticism that you have an underlying motive for revealing the facts and thus might want those facts tweaked to attain your motive.
I am glad you let me see this before you sent it. I wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good post, Garry. And very good points indeed.
As Vincent Bugliosi said in his book, Katzenbach's memo is "clumsily written". The way it was written can most certainly be interpreted by many people as being the words of a man who really DIDN'T want "all the facts" to come out.
But, as I said in my last post, I find it impossible to believe that Deputy AG Nick Katzenbach had any thoughts in his head of "cover-up" or suppressing the facts when he wrote his memo on 11/25/63.
Interpretation is everything when we attempt to evaluate Mr. Katzenbach's "clumsily written" memorandum. CTers look at it and see signs of whitewash and cover-up in every paragraph. But I see the words of a man who doesn't want a bunch of FALSE rumors to start spreading to the public.
GARRY PUFFER SAID:
David,
Thanks for your compliment. I guess the satire was too subtle, though, huh? That's the trouble with satire sometimes.
I believe Katzenbach knew exactly what he wanted to say and said it. I'm willing to bet that never in his life did he write a "clumsily worded" memo. Guys like him just didn't operate that way.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, Garry, you're suggesting that Nick Katzenbach was promoting the following idea:
*** I don't care if the real facts indicate that twelve other people were involved in the assassination of JFK, I think the American public should be told that it was Oswald who did it ALONE. And I don't care what my boss, Bobby Kennedy, might think. I don't care if the killers of Bobby's brother get away and are never caught. I'm only concerned about pinning the whole thing on Lee Oswald--and to heck with the facts and the truth. ***
Is that about the size of it, Garry? It sure sounds as if you are saying Katzenbach had the exact frame-of-mind that is spelled out above. And I couldn't disagree more.
GARRY PUFFER SAID:
I certainly agree that he wanted unfounded rumors to stop. That's pretty clear. But something he wrote goes to the heart of the debate that's been going on for 50+ years now:
"Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat -- too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.)."
That's how everything seems to us, David: too pat. All the "evidence" against Oswald is too pat, too obvious. Has it never struck you that way?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I guess I can see how some conspiracy believers might think that way.
E.G.,
Oswald's ties to Russia (via his attempted defection);
Oswald's love for Cuba and Castro;
Oswald's ties to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee;
Oswald happens to get a job along the eventual motorcade route;
Oswald leaves the bullet shells in the TSBD Sniper's Nest after killing Kennedy;
Oswald then just happens to physically dump some more bullet shells out of his revolver at the Tippit murder scene 45 minutes later;
Ruby just happens to sneak into the City Hall basement with a gun (and a grudge); etc.
But when each of these alleged "too pat" items is examined and properly evaluated, the notion that a conspiracy was involved in ANY of those things vanishes....unless, for example, you want to make the unfounded accusation that Ruth Paine and Linnie Mae Randle were somehow involved in some kind of plot to "plant" Lee Harvey in the Depository in October for the purpose of framing Oswald for the President's murder (as many CTers do claim).
Or, in the Ruby instance, if you want to suggest that people like Karen Carlin and Harry Holmes were part of some plot to kill Oswald.
Or, in the "Tippit shells" example, if you want to theorize that all of the various witnesses at or near the Tippit murder scene were later coerced into identifying Lee Oswald as the man who shot J.D. Tippit (or as the one and only man who was fleeing the murder scene with a gun in his hand).
Because without those people like Carlin, Paine, Holmes, and those several Tippit witnesses being involved in SOME way in a plot, then the way things played out on November 22nd and November 24th in Dallas can't be anything but ordinary happenstance. Ergo, "too pat" becomes "real-life chance occurrences".
Back to Katzenbach for a moment....quoting Bugliosi again:
"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, Congressman Gerald Ford, Senator 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"
David Von Pein
January 13, 2014
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