Lifton tees off on DiEugenio at Ed Forum

[Tom Scully]

.....

Paul, I am not telling you something that surprises you, this is a tough "business". If you are outspoken it does not matter if the facts are on your side. In response to publicly bringing verifiable facts to the attention of John Simkin, Peter Janney, HP Albarelli, Jr., David Lifton, and Jim DiEugenio, for example, the responses are indistinguishable except for the degree of intensity. Janney described (dismissed my facts) me in the second edition of his book, "Mary's Mosaic" as a "DiEugenio Protege". Later, Jim DiEugenio accused me of falling under the influence of Max Holland!

.....

https://jfkfacts.org/provocative-prolific-joan-mellen/#comment-869223
....

.......

.

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/thread-15982-post-124219.html#pid124219
Jim DiEugenio #408-12-2018, 11:09 PM

Tom, I like you personally and I think you usually do good work and I defended you when people were attacking your approach at EF.

But I am at a loss to explain how you fell for Carpenter. This is a guy who writes for Max Holland. I stopped reading his book when I saw how he covered up the military record of Thrasher who Shaw worked for.
.....

https://variety.com/2019/tv/global/agc-television-picks-up-worldwide-oliver-stones-jfk-destiny-betrayed-1203368818/
AGC Television Picks up Worldwide on Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK: Destiny Betrayed’
By John Hopewell

Comments
.....

Tom Scully October 15, 2019 at 6:53 am
I like Jim DiEugenio personally, and I think he usually does good work,
but in this instance, Jim is actually protecting Nicholas B. Lemann,
author of the 1992 article published in GQ Magazine attacking, Garrison
and co-screenplay writers of “JFK the Movie, Oliver Stone and Zachary
Sklar. Sklar also served as editor of Garrison’s autobiography. Garrison
failed to reveal to Sklar or to author Joan Mellen a detail Clay Shaw had
learned in March, 1967, from former CIA agent and Shaw Trademart employee,
David G. Baldwin, III, that Garrison’s wife, “Liz” Ziegler Garrison, was
first cousin of Baldwin and his brother, Edward, and godchild of David.
David G. Baldwin’s wife was step-sister of WDSU outside counsel Garrison
informed the FCC in a June, 1967, letter, was distributing Central
Intelligence Agency funds to attorneys representing subjects of interest
in Garrison’s investigation.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1974/2/6/the-rise-and-fall-of-big/
The Rise and Fall of Big Jim G.
Politics By Nicholas Lemann
February 6, 1974

ONE OF THE OLDEST saws about Southern politics runs something like this: If only a politician in the South could run with the united support of blacks and blue-collar whites, he would be unbeatable. And since he wouldn't be tied to the rich whites who control the South, he could really change things. Only a very few Southern politicians have been able to put together this mythical coalition, but Jim Garrison, the six-and-a-half foot tall New Orleans district attorney who lost his third reelection campaign in December, remained politically powerful in New Orleans for years with a loyal black and blue-collar white constituency.

But because his career has been so bizarre, it's not likely that anyone will ever herald Garrison as a champion of New South politics. ....

http://blog.donaldhcarpenter.com/2016/09/
September 2016 - Don's Blogblog.donaldhcarpenter.com › 2016/09
Sep 7, 2016 - Steve M. Galbraith wrote in with a comment back a few months ago and it was never forwarded directly to me. My apologies, Steve! Actually ..

.....

From Kerry Thornley's Grand Jury testimony: Clint Bolton, Thornley's "mentor" Jesse Core, and David Baldwin all spent time in India, Baldwin and Bolton as "journalists"...


1968: Kerry Thornley describes Clint Bolton...


Edwin Walker's future landlord:


Mary's description is only half right....

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/marysdb.php?id=2345&search=stephen%20lemaNN
home/ resources / mary ferrell's database / index: c / entry 2345
A Record from Mary's Database
Record: CIA, IN NEW ORLEANS
Sources:
Gaudet files; New Orleans Directories

Mary's
Comments:
See: Wm. P. Burke, Jr; Hunter C. Leake, III; Stephen B. Lemann (resident CIA Chief in New Orleans - with Law Firm: Monroe & Lemann). See Lloyd A. Ray.

From Joan Mellen's book:

https://jfkfacts.org/provocative-prolific-joan-mellen/#comment-869223
Tom S. - April 12, 2016 at 1:25 pm
.....
Although I am credited as a contributor to Ms. Mellen’s book, “Our Man in Haiti,” my entire body of research results influence me to share an opinion that the description of Joan Mellen in this article is overdone….

She first met Jim Garrison just months after the Clay Shaw trial in 1969 and described interviewing more than 1200 people before publishing her book on Jim Garrison, “Farewell to Justice.”

More than 30 years after she first met Jim Garrison and in addition to much other research and interviewing 1200 people, this was the crux and the emphasis of Joan Mellen’s presentation on the best supported CIA influences/interference on Garrison’s investigation and his prosecution of Clay Shaw.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Unredacted_-_Episode_1_-_Transcript.html
Unredacted Episode 1: Transcript of Interview with Joan Mellen
Joan Mellen is the author of A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History. This interview was conducted on 22 Feb 2006. Tyler Weaver provided the introduction, and the interview was conducted by Rex Bradford.
…….
REX: I – I think –

JOAN: – when Baldwin was present, he was a CIA asset, his brother worked for the International Trade Mart and Clay Shaw, David Baldwin, and these, these are CIA people….
....

David Baldwin's brother and former Garrison associate under District Attorney and WC Asst. Counsel, Leon D Hubert

https://charlierose.com/guests/11110
ENTERTAINMENT, HISTORYAir Date 12/30/1991
Nicholas Lemann, David Denby, and Zachary Sklar debate Oliver Stone's movie "JFK."

https://journalism.columbia.edu/faculty/nicholas-lemann

Nicholas Lemann | Dean Emeritus Columbia Journalism School
Nicholas Lemann. Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism; Dean Emeritus; Director, Columbia World Projects. Expertise: Ethics ...

https://jfkfacts.org/comment-of-the-week-13/#comment-851438
Tom S. January 20, 2016
.....
http://www.leagle.com/decision/19921409806FSupp603_11312/RUSSO%20v.%20CONDE%20NAST%20PUBLICATIONS
Perry RUSSO v. CONDE NAST PUBLICATIONS d/b/a Gentlemen’s Quarterly.
United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana.
November 17, 1992
……
UNDISPUTED FACTUAL BACKGROUND:

In its January, 1992 issue, GQ Magazine published an article entitled “The Case Against Jim Garrison” (hereafter the “GQ article”). The GQ article was written by Nicholas B. Lemann, a New Orleans native and winner of numerous awards for his books and articles. The GQ article was a personal memoir1 of Lemann’s recollections of growing up in New Orleans during District Attorney Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Clay Shaw for allegedly conspiring to assassinate JFK.

The 1991 movie release, JFK sparked renewed interest in the assassination as well as the prosecution itself of Clay Shaw. The film was purportedly based on Garrison’s book, On the Trail of Assassins, and sympathetically portrayed Garrison.

The GQ article published by Lemann took a different slant, expressing his view that Shaw’s prosecution was built on flimsy evidence and was a tremendous embarrassment to the city.2 The thrust of Lemann’s article was his opinion countering that expressed by Stone in his film release JFK, to wit:

(See Letters to GQ, http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Stone%20Oliver%20JFK%20Movie/Gentleman's%20Quarterly/Item%2002.pdf
An excerpt from the introduction to Lemann’s lengthy response.:
…Printing both sides of the story has never been a
fundamental rule of magazine journalism.
Magazines are supposed to be feisty and opin-
ionated. So it’s with a sense of futility that I
rebut Sklar’s points….

Is Dr. McAdams’s opinion of authors Mellen and DiEugenio, vs. his lack of concern with regard to Nicholas
Lemann’s well timed Garrison “hit piece” and Lemann more generally, reasonable, considering the facts?
.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/opinion/chernobyl-hbo-lies-trump.html

.....But there’s one striking parallel. “Chernobyl” isn’t just an account of an environmental catastrophe, or the personal heroics that prevented it from becoming even worse. It illustrates what happens to societies corrupted by the institutionalization of lies and the concomitant destruction of trust.

That’s the real story of the real Chernobyl, where for once the basic truths of the natural world — of chemistry and particle physics — overwhelmed the enforced truths of Soviet orthodoxy and propaganda.

In scene after scene, party officials decree that the seriousness of the accident isn’t so bad. Or that the extent of the fallout isn’t so wide. Or that the reach of the blame isn’t so deep. They lie to the West. They lie to their people. They lie up the chain of command and down it. Why? Because they can.

“Do you think the right question will get you the truth?” Anatoly Dyatlov (played by Paul Ritter), the engineer who oversaw the safety test that led to the disaster and later became the regime’s designated fall guy, says to a scientist trying to find out what happened the night of the accident. “There is no truth. Ask the bosses whatever you want and you will get the lie. And I will get the bullet.”

In fact, Dyatlov got 10 years (and served three). But the line captures the essence of a system in which every official lie is a noble one and truth is whatever happens to serve the party at a particular moment in time. And it works — until it doesn’t.

“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth,” Valery Legasov (Jared Harris), the hero of the drama, says....
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/30/obituaries/valery-legasov-51-chernobyl-investigator.html

just before committing suicide.  “Sooner or later that debt is paid.”.....

[Tom Scully]

Crickets....

We certainly, almost to a man, closely guard and maintain our belief systems, reflexively circling the wagons around those who have misled us, even sometimes intentionally.

I didn't warch "JFK, the Movie" until 2013. Am I missing something, or are you? A "tell" here is DiEugenio is acting like a typical Trump supporter. He refuses to even consider what I have presented since 2016, and responds with his own version of. "you have TDS, Scully!" LOL...

Let's look, "under the hood" to consider the history behind author Lifton's latest "eruption" !

https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/garrisn2.txt

David Lifton TO: "David S. Lifton", 72303,2702 FROM: Lisa Pease, ... having accused his good friend Kerry Thornley of involvement as an Oswald double. ... had to call you up and tell you that if you didn't cut it out, he was going to file a lawsuit.....
….
TO:     "David S. Lifton", 72303,2702
FROM:   Lisa Pease, INTERNET:lpease@netcom.com
DATE:   08/06/95, 11:52 am CDT
Re:     Re: Sunday's News Sat. (8/5)

On 6 Aug 1995, David S. Lifton wrote:

> Gary:
>
> Jim Garrison was one of the biggest frauds that ever came down the pike.  He
> prosecuted innocent people, did an enormous disservice to the movement, and
> when the jury acquitted Shaw, it was "good riddance."

It seems Lifton has a hate for Garrison based on Garrison's having accused his
good friend Kerry Thornley of involvement as an Oswald double. But what is
hilarious is that in Thornley's book, THE IDLE WARRIOR, to which Lifton wrote
his obligatory Garrison bashing intro, Thornley has a more generous
perspective:

(Lisa, quoting from Thornley...) ...Why
was I introduced to Clay Shaw a week or two before the assassination? Why - at
about the time but on a separate occasion - did my friend Clint Bolton take me
into the International Trade Mart, of which Shaw was director? Why was my
landlord at the time of the assassination also one of Clay Shaw's best friends?
Why, shortly after my 1961 arrival in New Orleans, was I introduced to Guy
Banister? And why was Banister so interested in the book I was writing?

"On top of that, I have figured out since testifying to the contrary before
Garrison's grand jury that I also once met David Ferrie, besides meeting David
Chandler as well. Both were high on Garrison's suspect list.

"More recently, I find reason to believe that Gordon Novel - another of
Garrison's suspects - may have been one of my pledge brothers, known to me as
Goardy, in Delta Sigma Phi at the University of Southern California....

"Such nagging considerations finally helped me discover the horrifying truth
about my own involvement in the assassination conspiracy, which I began
unraveling in 1975 because of the Watergate revelations....

"Contrary to Garrison's theories, I was not one of those who took part in
*directly* framing Oswald. [emphasis added] But Lifton's assumption that I was
not involved at all is wider of the mark."

In another book which I do not have on me, Thornley wrote what amounted to an
apology to Garrison, and told how he had tried to approach Garrison at one
point expressing this, but Garrison rebuked him.

Here is a man calling Garrison dishonest, yet admitting that the people
Garrison was interested in were involved in an "assassination conspiracy",
admitting he knew many of the people involved, and admitting he committed
perjury before the grand jury.....

This is what I know of Clint Bolton, that you may not.... and I cannot find any proof he ever attended Princeton Univ., but US Census records do support his description of his New Jersey roots.
I learned from this that Bolton once reported from India for the AP, earlier than the simultaneous, early 1950s postings in the country of Jesse Core @ State and David Baldwin @ CIA

https://anncavittfisher.com/2016/02/25/to-miss-new-orleans/

...The city winds in and out of my consciousness, a strong part of who I am.
I know the map of the French Quarter like the palm of my hand. I should. A master taught me.
Clint Bolton seduced me when I was fourteen. No, not in that way. But I did fall in love with him, and along with him, his New Orleans.
I met Clint Bolton at the Pendennis Club in New Orleans in August of 1979. My father belonged to Pendennis, and my parents had dragged me to a cocktail party there.
Yes, I said cocktail party. I was fourteen, it was New Orleans, and yes, I was drinking. Not a whole lot, mind you, but yes. Bored out of my mind, I expressed my desire to leave to my mother, and I said, “There is only one interesting person in the whole place — and he’s sitting over there.” I pointed to an old man sitting in a wheelchair having a dramatic conversation with the people gathered around him.....

I believe Nicholas B Lemann could fill in many gaps but has no incentive to do so. In response to Zachary Sklar's criticism of Lemann's December, 1991 GQ Magazine article perfectly timed to "kneecap" Stone's and Sklar's about to be released film, JFK, Lemann declared he had not written as a journalist.

Point me to another with only a batchelor's degree who experienced an "elevation" similar to Lemann's....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Lemann
Nicholas Berthelot Lemann is the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism and Dean Emeritus of the Faculty of Journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.[1] He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999.[2]....

There were three agents in the NOLA CIA domestic contacts office in 1967. One, Dorothy Brandao, happened to be a NOLA native who was educated in Jim Garrison's home state of Iowa, and was the ex-sister-in-law of Garrison's mentor, Eberhard Deutch's co-counsel at Standard Fruit, Augusto P Miceli. As inside counsel, Miceli likely influential in hiring outside counsel, Deutsch.

Standard Fruit and Steamship Co. v. Hampton, 233 F.2d 782 ...
https://casetext.com/case/standard-fruit-and-steamship-co-v-hampton

... Ralph L. Kaskell, Jr., Deutsch, Kerrigan Stiles, New Orleans, La., Eberhard P. Deutsch, Augusto P. Miceli, ... S. Paul Weiss, Jr., New Orleans, La., for appellee.

https://jfkfacts.org/hardway-declaration-cia-stonewalled-jfk-investigation/#comment-880768
Tom S.  - June 6, 2016 at 11:37 pm
Part II of II
Oliver Stone protested :
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/03/opinion/l-warren-panel-findings-should-stir-outrage-381592.html
Published: February 3, 1992
To the Editor:
Anthony Lewis’s Jan. 9 column is only one in a series of attacks in The Times on me and the movie “J.F.K.” and, in fact, on anything that questions the Warren Commission’s findings on the assassination of President Kennedy…..
….. Inaccuracies aside, I find Mr. Lewis’s charade of civil libertarian concern far more disturbing. Mr. Lewis asserts that Jim Garrison “bribed witnesses to prosecute an innocent man.” The “bribed” witnesses all signed affidavits denying the allegations, and Clay Shaw — the “innocent man” — won an acquittal. I do not question that verdict. While Mr. Lewis and you excoriate Jim Garrison for taking a man to trial (after several hearings on the evidence), neither shows remorse in calling Oswald “Kennedy’s assassin,” though he was never tried, convicted or even allowed legal representation in Dallas.
In 1964, Mr. Lewis wrote of the Warren Report: “Few who loved John Kennedy, or this country, will be able to read it without emotion.” For some, like myself, the emotion is outrage. For Mr. Lewis and The Times, it’s complacency. OLIVER STONE Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 1992
Here is the link to Nicholas Lemann and Zachary Sklar trading letters in GQ, after the Lemann’s Jan., 1992 article was published…..
Lemann responds on pg. 2, to Sklar’s letter which begins on pg 1.:
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Stone%20Oliver%20JFK%20Movie/Gentleman's%20Quarterly/Item%2002.pdf
No disclosure in Nicholas’s rebuttal to Zachary Sklar, or from Sklar about Lemann’s conflicts/background:
https://books.google.com/books?id=GyskeQlVFfkC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&dq=%22Evidently+GQ+has+forgotten+one+of*%22&source=bl&ots=b02QHvBpVD&sig=iEO3sbtiMZy8BxRg-I5wOALTuEI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLjo-yhJXNAhUI8CYKHXHADjQQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22Evidently%20GQ%20has%20forgotten%20one%20of*%22&f=false
JFK: The Book of the Film : the Documented Screenplay
By Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar
“…..Evidently GQ has forgotten one of the fundamental rules of American journalism: Give the readers both sides of the story. The case for Jim Garrison is not to be found in your pages. Lemann’s glib charges are so sweeping that it’s impossible to respond to all of them in a letter. I suggest anyone interested in Garrison’s case read On the Trail of the Assassins, the former New Orleans district attorney’s own account of his investigation. As the editor of this book, and co-screenwriter of Oliver Stone’s JFK, I take issue with several of Lemann’s unfounded assertions…..”
Stone claims “JFK, the movie” cost $41 million, yet he seems as out of the loop as Joan Mellen, and Jim DiEugenio….
I’ll end with pointing out that Harold Weisberg was also “taken in” by David Baldwin’s close friend and his successor as PR man at the trade mart, Jesse R. Cole, III.:

https://jfkfacts.org/memories-parkland-doctor/#comment-879343
Tom S. May 30, 2016 at 8:59 pm
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/Core%20Jesse/Item%2012.pdf
Harold Weisberg befriends Jesse Core. I find no mention of David Baldwin in the Weisberg archives.

[Gerry Down]

To whit, we're expected to believe that the bad guys somehow squirreled away the body en route from Parkland to the plane, threw the body down into the cargo hold, and then in front of bright TV lights at Andrews, was snuck out the back of the plane and whisked off in a thrumming helicopter while Jackie kept her hand on an empty coffin in front of TV cameras.

I haven't read Best Evidence. And what you just said is the reason why.

[Paul May]

Crickets....

We certainly, almost to a man, closely guard and maintain our belief systems, reflexively circling the wagons around those who have misled us, even sometimes intentionally.

I didn't warch "JFK, the Movie" until 2013. Am I missing something, or are you? A "tell" here is DiEugenio is acting like a typical Trump supporter. He refuses to even consider what I have presented since 2016, and responds with his own version of. "you have TDS, Scully!" LOL...

Let's look, "under the hood" to consider the history behind author Lifton's latest "eruption" !

This is what I know of Clint Bolton, that you may not.... and I cannot find any proof he ever attended Princeton Univ., but US Census records do support his description of his New Jersey roots.
I learned from this that Bolton once reported from India for the AP, earlier than the simultaneous, early 1950s postings in the country of Jesse Core @ State and David Baldwin @ CIA

I believe Nicholas B Lemann could fill in many gaps but has no incentive to do so. In response to Zachary Sklar's criticism of Lemann's December, 1991 GQ Magazine article perfectly timed to "kneecap" Stone's and Sklar's about to be released film, JFK, Lemann declared he had not written as a journalist.

Point me to another with only a batchelor's degree who experienced an "elevation" similar to Lemann's....

There were three agents in the NOLA CIA domestic contacts office in 1967. One, Dorothy Brandao, happened to be a NOLA native who was educated in Jim Garrison's home state of Iowa, and was the ex-sister-in-law of Garrison's mentor, Eberhard Deutch's co-counsel at Standard Fruit, Augusto P Miceli. As inside counsel, Miceli likely influential in hiring outside counsel, Deutsch.

DiEugenio is a Trump supporter

[Gerry Down]

I didn't warch "JFK, the Movie" until 2013. Am I missing something, or are you?

Wow that's quiet an achievement whether you agree or disagree with the way that movie was made. Were you not curious to watch it sooner?

[Mark A. Oblazney]

Crickets....

We certainly, almost to a man, closely guard and maintain our belief systems, reflexively circling the wagons around those who have misled us, even sometimes intentionally.

I didn't warch "JFK, the Movie" until 2013. Am I missing something, or are you? A "tell" here is DiEugenio is acting like a typical Trump supporter. He refuses to even consider what I have presented since 2016, and responds with his own version of. "you have TDS, Scully!" LOL...

Let's look, "under the hood" to consider the history behind author Lifton's latest "eruption" !

This is what I know of Clint Bolton, that you may not.... and I cannot find any proof he ever attended Princeton Univ., but US Census records do support his description of his New Jersey roots.
I learned from this that Bolton once reported from India for the AP, earlier than the simultaneous, early 1950s postings in the country of Jesse Core @ State and David Baldwin @ CIA

I believe Nicholas B Lemann could fill in many gaps but has no incentive to do so. In response to Zachary Sklar's criticism of Lemann's December, 1991 GQ Magazine article perfectly timed to "kneecap" Stone's and Sklar's about to be released film, JFK, Lemann declared he had not written as a journalist.

Point me to another with only a batchelor's degree who experienced an "elevation" similar to Lemann's....

There were three agents in the NOLA CIA domestic contacts office in 1967. One, Dorothy Brandao, happened to be a NOLA native who was educated in Jim Garrison's home state of Iowa, and was the ex-sister-in-law of Garrison's mentor, Eberhard Deutch's co-counsel at Standard Fruit, Augusto P Miceli. As inside counsel, Miceli likely influential in hiring outside counsel, Deutsch.

Well......

[John Tonkovich]

I know David Lifton.

David Lifton is a friend of mine.

Jim DiEugenio, a consummate fabricator is no David Lifton.


It was just a few days ago that I had the extraordinary experience of being on line, very late at night, and learning—quite unexpectedly— of Bob Dylan’s just released song, Murder Most Foul.  Reading the lyrics, I was astonished to learn that Dylan had focused on— and incorporated into his lyrics—the essence of Best Evidence, or at least, of its final chapters:  autopsy fakery via body alteration; specifically, fakery that involved the (covert and illicit) removal of JFK’s brain, prior to autopsy.

But there is was, in plain English, from Hamlet (Act I, Scene 5), where Hamlet is talking to the Ghost; now quoting:

  And each particular hair to stand on end,

  Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.

  But this eternal blazon  must not be

  To ears of flesh and blood. List, List, O, List!

  If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

  Hamlet.  O God!

  Ghost.  Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

  Hamlet.  Murder!

  Ghost.  Murder most foul, as in the best it is,

  But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

A friend of mine—who also noticed—telephoned me (the first of many calls I received) and asked how I felt; how I felt about my work being mentioned, almost explicitly, in the lyrics of a song written by someone (Dylan) who had recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature (2016).  “I feel proud,” I replied, and I did (and still do). The late Pat Lambert, who played a major role in editing Best Evidence, used to say, “David, your work will seep slowly into the culture.”  She didn’t have any prediction as to when that would occur, just the certainty that eventually it would. 

I hoped she was right.  And maybe now it has, but in a way I would never have expected.  Best Evidence  was published in January 1981.  After years of isolation, I was proud when it was selected  Book of the Month Selection (Sept 1980, approx), was on the New York Times best-seller list (for about 3 months, starting in February 1981); and (to my considerable surprise), was  briefly number 1 on the wire service lists (Feb - April, 1981).

(Aside: I know that many of you are waiting for Final Charade. You will not be disappointed. I've had some personal problems, plus other factors, one of which was the late arrival of some very important--and 'new"--evidence; which led to some re-design).

Meanwhile, I have followed the public reception to Murder Most Foul, and so it was, just a few hours ago, that I visited the London Education Forum to see what was going on in the JFK discussion group there, and came across a writing by James DiEugenio.  I don’t make it habit to follow much of what DiEugenio writes, because he and his brainy pal, Milicent Cranor (who is very smart, much smarter that DiEugenio, and very likely much smarter than I) have exhibited an inexplicable hostility to Best Evidence that dates back some 20 years (or more).

In any event, as i read DiEugenio’s writing, and I was impressed. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “This is pretty good.  He (J. D.) must have really grown, as a writer and a thinker.”

But then, within a few minutes, reality dawned. And my initial reaction was “Oh no! Is that what’s going on here?” Along with: “Here we go again!”

To what am I referring?

What I am referring to is the fact that —when it comes to anything fairly technical (and highly analytic) the author of certain writing at "Kennedy and Kings" is not DiEugenio at all, but a third party.  Now. . who might that be?  Over the years I learned exactly who that was.

This brings me back to this latest piece of writing, supposedly by “Jim DiEugenio,” but obviously written by that third party—specifically, by Milicent Cranor.

Everyone has their sources—their Deep Throat, or perhaps a mole, and I am no exception.

** ** **

I am writing this post to state —for the record, the historical record—that the latest writing by Jim DiEugenio about Murder Most Foul,—a fairly good essay, allegedly by DiEugenio (and just under 3000 words, which would be about 12 pages, double spaced) was not written by DiEugenio, but by Milicent Cranor.

I notice that towards the bottom of page one (in the single-spaced version), she gives herself a literary cameo (in much the same way that Alfred Hitchcock —the great English film director, who passed away in April 1980— would insert himself into one of his films).

So towards the bottom of page one (single spaced), the piece states:

Many writers on the JFK case, including our own Milicent Cranor, have referred to the murder of JFK as a “magic trick”.

Yeah sure, Milicent. A very nice gesture.  A nice pat on the back --your e-back, if I might coin a phrase. But the only “magic trick” here is that Cranor is posing as DiEugenio -- or, to state it differently (and referring back to my posts on this subject years ago) DiEugenio has a talented ghost writer, but pretends he wrote all of this himself.

C’mon Jim.  Its time to ‘fess up,' and end this farce.

Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln who said: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”  No, in fact it wasn’t—and there’s quite a debate about the origin of that phrase.  No matter:  this famous quote about deception captures the essence of how I feel about this situation, and the false attribution (to Jim DiEugenio) of words (and ideas) written by a third party, someone whose initials are "M. C.".

And that’s about all I have to say - - at this juncture. There may be more in the future.

Stay tuned.

DSL

It was just a few days ago that I had the extraordinary experience of being on line, very late at night, and learning—quite unexpectedly— of Bob Dylan’s just released song, Murder Most Foul.  Reading the lyrics, I was astonished to learn that Dylan had focused on— and incorporated into his lyrics—the essence of Best Evidence, or at least, of its final chapters:  autopsy fakery via body alteration; specifically, fakery that involved the (covert and illicit) removal of JFK’s brain, prior to autopsy.

But there is was, in plain English, from Hamlet (Act I, Scene 5), where Hamlet is talking to the Ghost; now quoting:

  And each particular hair to stand on end,

  Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.

  But this eternal blazon  must not be

  To ears of flesh and blood. List, List, O, List!

  If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

  Hamlet.  O God!

  Ghost.  Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

  Hamlet.  Murder!

  Ghost.  Murder most foul, as in the best it is,

  But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

A friend of mine—who also noticed—telephoned me (the first of many calls I received) and asked how I felt; how I felt about my work being mentioned, almost explicitly, in the lyrics of a song written by someone (Dylan) who had recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature (2016).  “I feel proud,” I replied, and I did (and still do). The late Pat Lambert, who played a major role in editing Best Evidence, used to say, “David, your work will seep slowly into the culture.”  She didn’t have any prediction as to when that would occur, just the certainty that eventually it would. 

I hoped she was right.  And maybe now it has, but in a way I would never have expected.  Best Evidence  was published in January 1981.  After years of isolation, I was proud when it was selected  Book of the Month Selection (Sept 1980, approx), was on the New York Times best-seller list (for about 3 months, starting in February 1981); and (to my considerable surprise), was  briefly number 1 on the wire service lists (Feb - April, 1981).

(Aside: I know that many of you are waiting for Final Charade. You will not be disappointed. I've had some personal problems, plus other factors, one of which was the late arrival of some very important--and 'new"--evidence; which led to some re-design).

Meanwhile, I have followed the public reception to Murder Most Foul, and so it was, just a few hours ago, that I visited the London Education Forum to see what was going on in the JFK discussion group there, and came across a writing by James DiEugenio.  I don’t make it habit to follow much of what DiEugenio writes, because he and his brainy pal, Milicent Cranor (who is very smart, much smarter that DiEugenio, and very likely much smarter than I) have exhibited an inexplicable hostility to Best Evidence that dates back some 20 years (or more).

In any event, as i read DiEugenio’s writing, and I was impressed. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “This is pretty good.  He (J. D.) must have really grown, as a writer and a thinker.”

But then, within a few minutes, reality dawned. And my initial reaction was “Oh no! Is that what’s going on here?” Along with: “Here we go again!”

To what am I referring?

What I am referring to is the fact that —when it comes to anything fairly technical (and highly analytic) the author of certain writing at "Kennedy and Kings" is not DiEugenio at all, but a third party.  Now. . who might that be?  Over the years I learned exactly who that was.

This brings me back to this latest piece of writing, supposedly by “Jim DiEugenio,” but obviously written by that third party—specifically, by Milicent Cranor.

Everyone has their sources—their Deep Throat, or perhaps a mole, and I am no exception.



I am writing this post to state —for the record, the historical record—that the latest writing by Jim DiEugenio about Murder Most Foul,—a fairly good essay, allegedly by DiEugenio (and just under 3000 words, which would be about 12 pages, double spaced) was not written by DiEugenio, but by Milicent Cranor.

I notice that towards the bottom of page one (in the single-spaced version), she gives herself a literary cameo (in much the same way that Alfred Hitchcock —the great English film director, who passed away in April 1980— would insert himself into one of his films).

So towards the bottom of page one (single spaced), the piece states:

Many writers on the JFK case, including our own Milicent Cranor, have referred to the murder of JFK as a “magic trick”.

Yeah sure, Milicent. A very nice gesture.  A nice pat on the back --your e-back, if I might coin a phrase. But the only “magic trick” here is that Cranor is posing as DiEugenio -- or, to state it differently (and referring back to my posts on this subject years ago) DiEugenio has a talented ghost writer, but pretends he wrote all of this himself.

C’mon Jim.  Its time to ‘fess up,' and end this farce.

Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln who said: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”  No, in fact it wasn’t—and there’s quite a debate about the origin of that phrase.  No matter:  this famous quote about deception captures the essence of how I feel about this situation, and the false attribution (to Jim DiEugenio) of words (and ideas) written by a third party, someone whose initials are "M. C.".

And that’s about all I have to say - - at this juncture. There may be more in the future.

Stay tuned.

DSL

Wow. Lifton is delusional. Nothing new there.
Dylan's song references Lifton?  Gee, where?

[John Iacoletti]

Wow. Lifton is delusional. Nothing new there.
Dylan's song references Lifton?  Gee, where?

“They mutilated his body, and they took out his brain
What more could they do?
They piled on the pain”