FROM THE PORTLAND FREE PRESS

How the CIA Killed History

by Ace R. Hayes
(May/June 1997 iss

[Editor's note: Three decades ago (4 January 1967), the CIA produced adocument (#1035-960), "Countering Criticism of the Warren Report." Thisdocument was partly declassified under an FOIA, September 1976.It is the blueprint for employing "CIA media assets" to smear critics of the Warren Commission. The justification for this perversion of truth, justiceand democracy was clearly stated: "Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to castdoubt on the whole leadership of American society."

These CIA fascists demonstrate an absolute contempt for the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The National Security Act of 1947 was passed as Public Law 253, 26 July 1947. This institutionalization of permanent war and secret government effectively canceled the Constitution. This is true even though the law states: "[T]he Agency shall have no police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers, or internal-security functions. . . ." (The Central Intelligence Agency: History and Documents, edited by William M. Leary, 1984, p. 129)

From the days of NSC-68, 14 April 1950, to Executive Order No. 12333, 4 December 1982, the CIA has been systematically turned into the real world government. Who else runs the guns, drugs, wars and politics of countries around the world? A fast tour through Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, William Blum, 1995, will demonstrate the validity of this in the public record alone.

NSC-68 constructed the operational system for "covert economic, political and psychological warfare" for whatever purpose the covert state selects (ibid., p. 44). President Raygun issued Executive Order 12333, ". . . by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and statutes of the United States of America, including the National Security Act of 1947, as amended . . ." (ibid., p. 169) Lurking in this drone of baffle gab is part "2.6 Assistance to Law Enforcement Authorities" and "2.7 Contracting. Agencies within the Intelligence Community are authorized to enter into contracts or arrangements for the provision of goods or services with private companies or institutions in the United States and need not reveal the sponsorship of such contracts or arrangements for authorized intelligence purposes. . . ." (ibid., p. 178)

The real story of Raygun's Executive Order is The Third Option, by Theodore Shackley. He is the "blond ghost" of post-World War II neo-Nazi CIA covert warfare against the world and the American people:

"An essential element of the third option is penetration of the enemy organization Ñ that is, having your own agent inside the enemy camp. (Knowing what a terrorist group plans to do, you can do something about it.) Guards, burglar alarms, and watchdogs cannot do all that much to prevent the tragedies that the Carloses of the world would inflict upon us, nor do they help bring them to justice. For this you need informants or, more crudely, spies. To recruit such "assets," as they are also known, you must build an organization capable of protecting secret operations, policed by only a few responsible officials, who themselves are isolated on a "need to know" basis. Finally, if you are at all serious you must arm that organization with the power and legal authority to neutralize the terrorist bands uncovered. Nothing complicated here: ABC common sense." (An Expert's Provocative Report on ... The Third Option - An American View of Counterinsurgency Operations, Theodore Shackley, Dell Publishing, 1981 p. 12; emphasis added)

The Secret Government turned the Constitution into toilet paper under the pretext of National Security.]
 

Hand-written on the face of this document is the following:

"For Oswald file! 2 copies" and "This was pulled together by [blanked out] in close conjunction with [blanked out]. We furnished most of the source material, prepared many of the themes, and provided general ïexpertiseÍ on the case. The Spectator article was written [blanked out]."

Excerpts of the document follow:

"PSYCH
 

4. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the CommissionÍs published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the CommissionÍs findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren CommissionÍs Report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse, results.
5. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.
6. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active, however, addressees are requested:
1. to discuss the publicity probes with liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to
2. to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.
3. to employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. . .
7. In private or media discussion not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:
1. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider. . . .
2. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. . . .
3. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. . . .

9. Some writers appear to have been predisposed to criticism by anti-American, far-left, or Communist sympathies. The British "Who Killed Kennedy Committee" includes some of the most persistent and vocal English critics of the United States, e.g., Michael Foot, Kingsley Martin, Kenneth Tynan, and Bertrand Russell. Joachim Joesten has been publicly revealed as a onetime member of the German Communist Party (KPD); a Gestapo document of 8 November 1937 among the German Foreign Ministry files microfilmed in England and now returned to West Germany custody shows that his party book was numbered 532315 and dated 12 May 1931. (The originals of these files are now available at the West German Foreign Ministry in Bonn; the copy in the U.S. National Archives may be found under the reference T-120, Serial 4918, frames E256482-4. The British Public Records Office should also have a copy.) Joesten's American publisher, Carl Marzani, was once sentenced to jail by a federal jury for concealing his Communist Party (CPUSA) membership in order to hold a government job. Available information indicates that Mark Lane was elected Vice Chairman of the New York Council to Abolish to House Un-American Activities Committee on 28 May 1963; he also attended the 8th Congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (an international Communist front organization) in Budapest from 31 March to 5 April 1964, where he expounded his (pre-Report) views on the Kennedy assassination. In his acknowledgments in his book, Lane expresses special thanks to Ralph Schoenman of London "who participated in and supported the work"; Schoenman is of course the expatriate American who has been influencing the aged Bertrand Russell in recent years. (See also para. 10 below on Communist efforts to replay speculation on the assassination.) . . .
10. The likelihood of further criticism is enhanced by the circumstance that Communist propagandists seem recently to have stepped up their own campaign to discredit the Warren Commission. As already noted, MoscowÍs New Times reprinted parts of an article by Richard Popkin (21 and 28 September 1966 issues), and it also gave the Swiss edition of JoestenÍs latest work an extended, laudatory review in its number for 26 October. Izvestiya has also publicized JoestenÍs book in articles of 18 and 21 October. (In view of this publicity and the Communist background of Joesten and his American publisher, together with JoestenÍs insistence on pinning the blame on such favorite Communist targets as H. L. Hunt, the FBI and CIA, there seems reason to suspect that JoestenÍs book and its exploitation are part of a planned Soviet propaganda operation.) Tass, reporting on 5 November on the deposit of autopsy photographs in the National Archives, said that the refusal to give wide public access to them, the disappearance of a number of documents, and the mysterious death of more than 10 people, all make many Americans believe Kennedy was killed as the result of a conspiracy. The radio transmitters of Prague and Warsaw used the anniversary of the assassination to attack the Warren report. The Bulgarian press conducted a campaign on the subject in the second half of October; a Greek Communist newspaper, Avgi, placed the blame on CIA on 20 November. Significantly, the start of this stepped-up campaign coincided with a Soviet demand that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow stop distributing the Russian-language edition of the Warren report; Newsweek commented (12 September) that the Soviets apparently 'did not want mere facts to get in their way.'"

[Editor's note: The Mark Lane who is smeared by the CIA 30 years ago as some kind of "commie prevert" is, these days, smeared by the p.c. factoids as a fascist because he defended the Spotlight newspaper against a libel suit by E. Howard Hunt.

In Mr. Lane's book on the case, he provides trial transcripts. He asked Mr. Hunt, "Do you support the use of secret weapons by the U.S. Government to destroy the credibility of American citizens?" Hunt replied, "I would have to say it depends upon who those American citizens are." (Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK?, 1991, p. 265)

Where the hell do CIA thugs get the power to violate any citizen's Constitutional rights? Why do they believe they have the right to do so?

This insanity must be stopped.] M

(Anyone who wants a copy of the entire document, send your request to the Portland Free Press, along with $4.00, to: P.O. Box 1327, Tualatin, Ore.
97062.)