Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (71 page)

The wine that claims “It’s like taking a trip to France” wants you to think about a romantic evening in Paris as you walk along the boulevard after a wonderful meal in an intimate little bistro. Of course, you don’t really believe that a wine can take you to France, but the goal of the ad is to get you to think about pleasant, romantic
thoughts about France and not about how the wine tastes or how expensive it may be. That little word “like” has taken you away from crushed grapes into a world of your own imaginative making.

UNFINISHED WORDS

The claim that a battery lasts “up to twice as long” usually doesn’t finish the comparison—twice as long as what? A birthday candle? A tank of gas? A cheap battery made in a country not noted for its technological achievements? The implication is that the battery lasts twice as long as batteries made by other battery makers, or twice as long as earlier model batteries made by the advertiser, but the ad doesn’t really make these claims. You read these claims into the ad, aided by the visual images the advertiser so carefully provides.

Some years ago, Ford’s advertisements proclaimed “Ford LTD—700% quieter.” Now, what do you think Ford was claiming with these unfinished words? What was the Ford LTD quieter than?...A Cadillac?...A Mercedes Benz?...A BMW? Well, when the FTC asked Ford to substantiate this unfinished claim, Ford replied that it meant that the inside of the LTD was 700% quieter than the outside. How did you finish those unfinished words when you first read them? Did you even come close to Ford’s meaning?

READ THE LABEL, OR THE BROCHURE

Weasel words aren’t just found on television, on the radio, or in newspaper and magazine ads. Just about any language associated with a product will contain the doublespeak of advertising.

The variations, combinations, and permutations of doublespeak used in advertising go on and on, running from the use of rhetorical questions (“Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?” “If you can’t trust Prestone, who can you trust?”) to flattering you with compliments (“The lady has taste.” “We think a cigar smoker is someone special.” “You’ve come a long way baby.”).

You know, of course, how you’re
supposed
to answer those questions and you know that those compliments are just leading up to the sales pitches for the products.

But before you dismiss such tricks of the trade as obvious, just remember: all of these statements and questions were part of very successful advertising campaigns. And after all, isn’t that the point in the first place?

Everyone has heard of the Warren Commission—but do you know anything about it? Do you even know who was on it? This piece from
It’s a Conspiracy,
by the National Insecurity Council, is a conspiracy-minded introduction to the group.

W
hen Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered in police custody, many Americans began to suspect a conspiracy. Authorities in Dallas and Washington, D.C. immediately investigated the murder and concluded that neither Oswald nor Jack Ruby were involved in any conspiracy. They made their findings and much of their evidence public, but most Americans still had their doubts: a Gallup poll taken early in December 1963 found that 52% of Americans “believed that Oswald had not acted alone.” (
Crossfire)

There were calls for an independent congressional investigation. To forestall them, President Lyndon Johnson announced on November 29, 1963—just one week after JFK’s death—that he had created a federal panel to “uncover all the facts concerning the assassination of President Kennedy and to determine if it was in any way directed or encouraged by unknown persons at home or abroad.” The bipartisan panel was to be chaired by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Earl Warren, and comprised of seven men “of unimpeachable integrity.”

COMMISSION MEMBERS

• Earl Warren, Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court

• Hale Boggs, Democratic representative from Louisiana

• John Sherman Cooper, Republican senator from Kentucky

• Gerald Ford, Republican representative from Michigan

• Richard Russell, Democratic senator from Georgia

• Allen Dulles, Wall Street lawyer, former director of the CIA

• John J. McCloy, post-WWII High Commissioner of Germany, former president of the World Bank

THE FINDINGS

In September 1964, the Warren Commission presented a 26-volume report. Its findings included:

• “The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth floor window of the Depository Building....There were three shots fired.”

• “There is persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President’s throat also caused Governor Connally’s wounds.”

• “The shots which killed President Kennedy...were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.”

• “The Commission has found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy.”

THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

• The FBI and the CIA prejudged the case, assumed Oswald to be the lone assassin, suppressed evidence to the contrary, and deliberately lied to the Warren Commission. The commissioners knew they weren’t getting all the facts, but they went along.

• Senator Richard Schweiker, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s subcommittee that investigated the FBI’s and CIA’s role, said in 1976: “I believe the Warren Commission was set up at the time to feed pablum to the American people for reasons not yet known, and that one of the biggest coverups in the history of our country occurred at that time.”

SUSPICIOUS FACTS

• “Almost immediately after the assassination,” said a 1976 Senate Intelligence Committee report, Lyndon Johnson rushed to wrap up the case; his aides pressed the FBI “to issue a factual report supporting the conclusion that Oswald was the lone assassin.” At first, Johnson had wanted
no
investigation.

• In this, LBJ had the full support of J. Edgar Hoover. On November 24, 1963, Hoover said to Johnson’s aide Walter Jenkins, “The thing I am concerned about...is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”

• Once he realized that the public demanded a federal inquiry, LBJ hand-picked a panel. Chief Justice Warren wanted no part of it: he at first refused, saying that one branch of the government should not investigate another. But Johnson pressured him. Following the closed meeting in which LBJ convinced him to head the Commission, Warren emerged “with tears in his eyes.”

A Stacked Deck

• The CIA and the FBI, both potential suspects in the inquiry, were well represented on the Warren Commission. John J. McCloy had helped to establish the CIA.
Newsweek
called Gerald Ford “the CIA’s best friend in Congress.” Allen Dulles had been the director of the CIA for eight years before being fired by John Kennedy.

• According to
Crossfire
, “Dulles withheld CIA information from the Warren Commission, particularly concerning assassination plots between the Agency and organized crime.” Had other Commission members known of the CIA’s ties to the Mafia, mafioso Jack Ruby might have looked more like a “silencer” and less like a patriot distraught about the president’s murder.

• Moreover, when he was asked in executive session about rumors tying Oswald to the agency, Dulles admitted that he and his agents “would lie about whether or not Oswald worked for the CIA.”
(Coup d’Etat in America)

• But the FBI’s top “informant” may have been Gerald Ford, who, while supposedly conducting an impartial investigation, allegedly passed along information to the FBI. A memo from Cartha DeLoach, a close Hoover aide, said, “Ford indicated he would keep me thoroughly advised as to the activities of the Commission. He stated this would have to be on a confidential basis.”

Roads Not Taken

• Until commissioner John J. McCloy pointed out that the Secret Service and the FBI might be culpable and thus could not be counted on to provide an impartial investigation, Chairman Warren was not inclined to ask for subpoena powers or to hire independent investigators.

• Congress eventually did authorize the Warren Commission “to compel testimony by providing immunity from prosecution,” but
the Commission never once used this power.

• One striking failure: Although Commission members could have demanded to see the actual autopsy photos of the president’s wounds, they settled for artists’ drawings. Nor did they ask the Dallas doctors who’d attended the dying president if the drawings of his wounds were accurate.

• The Commission’s interviews with Jack Ruby were superficial. Ruby, fearing for his life in Dallas, said he’d tell all if only the commissioners would take him to Washington. They refused.

Ignored Witnesses

The Warren Commission questioned only 126 of the 266 witnesses to the killing, by testimony or affidavits. Among those it never called:

√ James Chaney, the motorcycle policeman who had been nearest Kennedy and saw the shot that killed him.

√ Senator Ralph Yarborough, part of the motorcade, who smelled gunpowder as he and LBJ drove past the infamous grassy knoll.

√ Bill and Gayle Newman, among the closest bystanders to JFK when he was hit, who insisted that the shot came from behind them on the grassy knoll.

√ Railroad employees Richard Dodd and James Simmons, who claimed that shots came from the picket fence behind the grassy knoll.

√ John Stringer and William Pitzer, medical technicians who photographed and X-rayed Kennedy’s body.

√ Admiral George Burkley, Kennedy’s personal physician, who attended the autopsy and allegedly passed on the medical evidence to the National Archives.

Badgered Witnesses

• Several witnesses who offered views that contradicted the lone-assassin theory were badgered to change their accounts. Witness Jean Hill, who said she saw a rifleman on the grassy knoll, was interviewed by Warren Commission junior counsel Arlen Specter (later a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania). She also said she heard
four to six shots.

• When she refused to change her story, she said Specter got “angrier and angrier and finally told me, ‘Look, we can make you look as crazy as Marguerite Oswald [Lee’s mother] and everyone knows how crazy she is. We could have you put in a mental institution if you don’t cooperate with us.’” Specter promised Hill that he would not publish the interview until she had approved it. But according to Hill, she never got the chance: “When I finally read my testimony as published by the Warren Commission, I knew it was a fabrication from start to finish.” (
Crossfire)

Dissenting Voices

• Although all seven members eventually endorsed the Warren Report in 1964, the Commission had its doubters. As author Anthony Summers points out in his book
Conspiracy:
“Three of the seven members of the Warren Commission did not fully believe the theory of the magic bullet, even though it appeared in their report. The commissioners wrangled about it up to the moment their findings went to press. Congressman Hale Boggs had ‘strong doubts.’ Senator Sherman Cooper was, as he told me in 1978, ‘unconvinced.’ Senator Richard Russell did not want to sign a report which said definitely that both men were hit by the same bullet and wanted a footnote added indicating his dissent. Warren declined to put one in.”

• In 1970, Russell became the first to question the Commission’s findings publicly. He told the
Washington Post
that he had come to believe Kennedy’s death was caused by a conspiracy. He also called the report “a sorrily incompetent document.” He died shortly after, of natural causes.

• Within a year, Representative Hale Boggs, the majority leader of the House, also expressed doubts about the Commission’s findings, especially the “magic bullet” theory. He followed that on April 1, 1971, with a stinging attack on J. Edgar Hoover, whom he accused of Gestapo tactics. Because Boggs was likely to become Speaker of the House, rumors flew that he was going to reopen the JFK assassination investigation. But it never happened: On October 16, 1972, while on a junket to Alaska, Boggs’s plane disappeared and was never found, despite a massive search.

As we mentioned elsewhere in the book, Jack Ruby was the first person to kill someone live on TV. And not just anybody—he killed the man accused of assassinating JFK. Ruby is more than a footnote to history ...yet once again, we know very little about him. This piece from
It’s a Conspiracy
might start you thinking: Was Jack Ruby just another “lone nut” killer, or one of the key players in the Kennedy assassination?