JFK Conference: Dan Hardway Detailed how CIA Obstructed HSCA Investigation

[Octafish]

37. Reply From a Conspiracy Believer

by Gaeton Fonzi

Vincent Bugliosi must be exhausted. He not only churned out more than 1600 pages of tautologically strained contentions to support his book’s pretentious title, Reclaiming History, he must be weary from wrestling with the multitude of distortions and twisted conclusions he was forced to make to support his primary assertion.

His primary assertion? Swallow that mouthful of Dr. Pepper before you read this: “...it has been established beyond all doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy.”

Fearful of endowing his abhorrent duplicity with any hint of legitimacy, I hesitate to take the time and effort to respond to all the ungrounded contentions he makes about my role as a federal investigator in the case and about certain areas of evidence with which I was involved. There are, however, two very significant segments of the investigation that Bugliosi, with clever distortion and selected omission of facts, defiles truth and history. And having cited as a source my own book, The Last Investigation, he had to be well aware of its documented adherence to the historical facts. (Former U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker graciously provided a jacket blurb citing the book for exactly that : “A rarity among Kennedy assassination books, (it) does not indulge in sensational or bizarre conspiracy theories.”)

One key contention that Bugliosi repeatedly makes is that my approach to the investigation was biased because, before I was hired by the HSCA, I “had long been a conspiracy theorist.” Bugliosi uses the term “conspiracy theorist” with the same poisonous implication that Joe McCarthy used when he stigmatized anyone who defied him as a “Communist sympathizer.” In my case, Bugliosi was forced to characterize my viewpoint as anything but objective in order to distort the validity of certain evidence I had discovered – evidence that knocked hell out of his and the Warren Commission’s crucial single bullet theory and the branding of Oswald as the lone assassin.

[font color="blue"]Bugliosi is wrong. I was never a “conspiracy theorist.” I went from an agnostic to a conspiracy believer. [/font color]Like millions of Americans and almost all journalists whose Fourth Estate responsibility mandates that they maintain a critical oversight of our Government, I didn’t question the Warren Report when it was published. Didn’t even read it. Its assertions and conclusions came to me from the daily press and the national news networks. And the most respected and nationally influential newspapers – including The New York Times – editorially praised the Report and instantly endorsed its conclusions. This despite the fact that the 26-volumes of evidence which the Commission claimed backed its critical conclusions weren’t available to the press until more than two months after the release of the Report.

SNIP...

When Veciana first revealed the existence of a Maurice Bishop, the Church Committee was in the midst of probing the CIA’s unauthorized activities. In reaction, David Atlee Phillips had “retired” from the Agency to form the Retired Intelligence Officers Association to defend the Agency from unfavorable public criticism. He had gotten some press notice, including a brief article with his photo in People magazine. I wasn’t aware of that when I was questioning Veciana about “Bishop,” nor had I ever heard of Phillips. After exhausting our short list of possible CIA agents who had worked anti-Castro activities, showing Veciana as many photos as we could get, we decided to have him work with a police artist to develop a sketch of Bishop. When Senator Schweiker saw the sketch, he said the face looked familiar. Perhaps, Schweiker guessed, he was one of the string of CIA agents called to testify before the Church Committee in secret sessions. That evening he recalled the name of one of the agents who strikingly resembled the sketch of Bishop. His name, Schweiker remembered, was David Atlee Phillips.

CONTINUED...

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Reply_From_a_Conspiracy_Believer

PS: Thanks for the heads-up about Mr. Bugliosi and Mr. Phillips crossing paths. While the assassination may be 50 years old, there is no statute of limitations on murder or treason despite what the stone of madness makes one think.