By Frank Gormlie
This may not be a surprise to hardcore corporate media watchers, but CNN has joined the ranks of those establishment outlets that are continuing the cover-up of the assassination of John F Kennedy. The news station has jumped on the bandwagon that is making a lot of noise these days due to the 50th anniversary of the President’s murder.
It was a real disappointment however, in viewing CNN’s “The Assassination of President Kennedy” because one of my favorite actors, Tom Hanks, was one of the producers and I was looking for some truth. Alas, it did not come through.
The show promised a look at the Warren Commission Report, and it started out with a lot of television footage from those crazy days in Dallas, November 22nd through the 24th when Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby. The old TV scenes in black and white gave the film authenticity, which were followed up by interviews of some of the major researchers and book authors on the killing of Kennedy.
It started off fairly balanced, with old scenes of Jim Garrison – the New Orleans DA who brought the only trial involving the assassination to life in America – , interviews with Mark Lane – the original critic of the Warren Commission, and also interviews with those who back the “3-bullet theory” and think Oswald did it and did it alone.
(You may recall that in Oliver Stone’s movie, “JFK”, Kevin Costner plays Garrison and in a great ironic twist, Stone had the real Garrison play Chief Justice Earl Warren – the head of the Commission.)
One of the principle Warren supporters that in the end CNN gave a lot of face time to, is author/ attorney Vince Bugliosi who also wrote a book on the shootings. His views were intertwined with interviews with Lane and other critics along with Warren Report advocates.
But Bugliosi slammed those like Garrison and Lane who questioned the Report, and as the program wore on, however, Bugliosi’s voice and viewpoint became the main line of the show. And he’s full of it.
Bugliosi penned a book that was the basis for the new Kennedy movie, “Parkland” – about the hospital where JFK and then Oswald were both brought. The movie does the best job of any other film in capturing the shock, sorrow and grief of us commoners and those immediately surrounding Kennedy. Yet, it collapses into basically going with the flow of Warren. So, both “Parkland” and the CNN video demonstrate that the cover-up of the murder of Kennedy is alive and well, thank you.
CNN is not alone, of course, as a number of new videos and films being promoted by the History Channel and by the National Geographic channel all support the Warren.
Here are a few examples of where CNN failed Americans by continuing to shove the cover-up down our collective throats:
- First, not one word about the 1979 Congressional investigation into the assassination and their conclusion that Kennedy was “probably killed by a conspiracy”.
- No expert criticism of the “magic bullet” that supposedly struck both Kennedy and then Texas Governor Connally – in fact, Bugliosi demonstrated how it could happen; recall after causing 7 wounds between the two men, the bullet was found mysteriously on a Parkland hospital gurney in pristine condition.
- No illumination on or interviews with witnesses who saw puffs of smoke coming from the wooden fence at the top of the Grassy Knoll or who saw suspicious activity on that mound or who heard gunshots emanating from that area during or before the shootings.
- No mention of the other guy who was wounded that day in Dealey Plaza in Dallas – which would mean a fourth bullet.
- Whole cloth acceptance of the photo of Oswald holding a rifle in his backyard – despite the debunking of the photo since the Seventies as a fake; one clearly can see shadows on Oswald’s face that don’t match the shadows of the male body and other objects in the photo. Plus, Oswald’s face was pasted onto someone else’s body – you can easily see the cut line just above the chin (Oswald had a cleft in his chin – the photo chin does not).
- CNN just wants us to accept that Dallas police officer Tibbet was also shot and killed by Oswald; it ignored those witnesses who had seen Tibbet, Ruby and Oswald all together just nights before the shootings.
- Nothing was raised about how Jack Ruby got into the Dallas police department basement that day when he shot Oswald before millions of TV viewers (I was one of them as a 15 year old). In fact, it is well documented Ruby was known by half of the police force, as he used to buy them all drinks at his club in Dallas; plus Ruby also had CIA and mob connections.
- No critique of the Warren Commission is heard, despite it being filled with politicians and officials who hated Kennedy. For example, Allen Dulles sat on it and was one of its busiest members of the “investigation” into the assassination. Yet, not too much earlier, JFK had fired Dulles as head of the CIA. Dulles and many in the CIA hated Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. It was also rumored that Kennedy was going to replace Lyndon Johnson as vice-president in the upcoming election in 1964. J Edgar Hoover was head of the FBI at the time and supplied the Warren Commission with all its evidence, leaving out evidence or refusing to follow leads that contradicted the main story line of Oswald, Book Depository 6th floor window, solo sniper. It was more than rumors that Kennedy was going to fire Hoover once he was re-elected.
- Importantly, CNN did not disclose any of the mysterious deaths of witnesses and other principles involved in the murder or subsequent cover-up. Too many witnesses met tragic endings within 3 years of the shootings – odds that defy logic – but the news channel ignored all of them.
- CNN described how Garrison brought charges against New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw (played by Tommy Lee Jones in “JFK”) and how he failed to prove any connection with the assassination or with the CIA that Garrison alleged. Yet, nothing was said on how a CIA director told the media years later that Clay Shaw did indeed work for the CIA.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture; CNN – an establishment media giant – does not wish to buck the official position that Oswald killed JFK, alone, and with 3 bullets. So, CNN continues the white-wash – and the traitorous cover-up.
November 22nd, 1963, was more than just one of the darkest days in American history. The Dealey Plaza murder of one of the most popular Presidents goes to the heart of our democracy, to its core.
If those who killed Kennedy can get away with it after half a century, and it appears that the conspiracy originated within the highest levels of government, then without bringing anyone to justice, America remains a country and society beholden to the military-industrial complex – a power within the government that Kennedy’s predecessor, President Eisenhower, warned us about in his farewell speech to the nation.
So, we shouldn’t be too surprised, then that major corporate media – like CNN – continue to play along, and continue the cover-up. And it continues to be up to us, the American people, to get to the bottom of it all, to bring these traitors to account.
Sadly, as long as the cover-up continues, serious doubts remain as to just how genuine our “democracy” is.
The truth is out there.
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Very well done Mr. Gormlie.
I watched last night and got precisely what I expected to find. Once again US mass media says “Everything’s OK America, go back to sleep, go watch American Idol…” to paraphrase the late great Bill Hicks. As flawed, virtually fact free and biased a documentary as I’ve ever seen.
The final nail in the coffin of CNN credibility.
If CNN told me that the sun was to rise tomorrow morning I wouldn’t believe it.
“Here-here” on your report on CNN’s re-confirmation of the Warren Report. What you have stated is what struck me and stood out so clearly to me…it (the CNN report) was so one-sided.
And don’t get me started on Bugliosi. He as a former DA should know that good police investigations start with not only physical evidences, but motives.
Even J. Edgar Hoover could have been considered a suspect (though I realize that would of been hard to conceive of at the time), as he, Hoover, was most likely going to be relieved of duty by President Kennedy in his (Hoover’s) near future.
All of the points of guilt of Oswald insinuated by CNN, could have been refuted by other evidences. Of which, Mr. Mark Lane (and others) could/can do…if given equal-time. And there-in lies the tragedy of such reports, to me.
I think its a sign of fatigue, that after 50 years, the media is saying” let’s just put this to bed, most of the peolpe who realy cared are to old or dead to want have an answer to the truth.” Even PBS has now gone with easy route.