A very wise man once wrote, “The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie— deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
This “wise man” was none other than John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. And though he wasn’t talking about his own death, he could have been, based on the mythical dialogue that was perpetuated to the American public within a few short days after he died on Nov. 22, 1963.
Distortions of what truly happened permeated instantly after FBI director J. Edgar Hoover first advocated the “Oswald Alone” theory when he called White House aide Walter Jenkins and told him, “The thing I am most concerned about and so is (Assistant Attorney General) Mr. Katzenbach is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”
Hoover then instructed aide Clyde Tolson to “prepare a memorandum to the attorney general setting out the evidence that Oswald was responsible for the shooting that killed the president.”
Soon Hoover’s edict was conveyed to the American people and the myth spread far and wide despite the presence of a viable motive: Lee Harvey Oswald had singlehandedly shot and killed JFK.
And, yes, the American people bought that garble and thus began decades of belief/denial that any other potential existed for not one man, but many, to have killed the president.
Months later, Hoover’s proclamation was rubber stamped by the infamous Warren Commission, and that was that until the 1970s House Select Committee on Assassinations was conveyed and raised questions about the “Oswald Alone” theory while pointing to possible mob motive for JFK’s death.
Picking up the baton, various authors through the years led by Gerald Posner (“Case Closed”) and Vincent Bugliosi (“Reclaiming History”) severely bashed anyone who believed a conspiracy of those with logical motives could have murdered JFK.
But along with Posner and Bugliosi, these authors who fought to puncture the “Oswald Alone” myth forgot, or purposely ignored, an essential element in any real search for the truth: The duty to research, discover and probe an 18-month JFK assassination investigation by the most famous and credible reporter in the 1950s and ’60s, Dorothy Mae Kilgallen.
Who was Kilgallen, and why did Hoover, the Warren Commission, the HSCA, and every author to date including James Douglass (“JFK and the Unspeakable”) neglect to learn from her investigation, one that began on the day her close friend JFK died?
Because in each case, conclusions were reached, and then the facts cherry-picked to fit these conclusions, instead of the other way around.
Working under this standard, Kilgallen, a Pulitzer-Prize nominated reporter called by Ernest Hemingway “the greatest female writer in the world,” one whose newspaper column was syndicated to 200 papers across the country, one who had covered such high-profile trials as Dr. Sam Sheppard (“The Fugitive”) and the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case — not to mention her being the star of the long-running CBS show, “What’s My Line?” — had to be ignored since the facts she uncovered did not fit with any of the various theories including “Oswald Alone.”
When Kilgallen mysteriously died on Nov. 8, 1965 just as she was to complete a book about the assassination for Random House — or was murdered based on new evidence presented in my upcoming book, “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much,” (Post Hill Press/Simon&Schuster), her JFK assassination investigation file disappeared, and worse, all of the columns and article she wrote about the assassination, including “Oswald File Must Not Close,” and “DA to Link Ruby and Oswald,” died with her, never to surface until now. In the former column of Nov. 29, 1963, she wrote:
“The case is closed, is it? Well, I’d like to know how, in a big, smart town like Dallas, a man like Jack Ruby — owner of a strip tease honky tonk — can stroll in and out of police headquarters as if it was at a health club at a time when a small army of law enforcers is keeping a “tight security guard” on Oswald. Justice is a big rug. When you pull it out from under one man, a lot of others fall, too.”
Sadly, authors such as Bugliosi also distorted the truth by ignoring a critical fact; Kilgallen covered the Jack Ruby trial and was the only reporter to interview him twice with her column the next day reading:
“I went out into the almost empty lunchroom corridor wondering what I really believed about this man.”‘
Furthermore, these authors refused to acknowledge that Kilgallen had the biggest exclusive of the day when she exposed Ruby’s testimony before the Warren Commission BEFORE its release date, even before President Johnson read it.
Bugliosi, in fact, spent three and a half pages out of more than a thousand discounting the Ruby interviews and the WC exclusive, since confirmed by this author through videotaped interviews with Joe Tonahill, Ruby’s co-counsel, that may be watched at www.thereporterwhoknewtoomuch.com.
Fortunately, after 50-plus years, it is now Dorothy Kilgallen to the rescue with her significant columns and articles, and videotaped interviews with friends who discuss her JFK investigation as well as threats on her life weeks before she was found dead of an alleged drug overdose in her New York City townhouse bedroom, where the death scene had been staged.
No investigation happened, and Kilgallen was denied the justice she deserved. That is, until now, since her voice will be heard, her fresh evidence about JFK’s death exposed for the world to see.
Hopefully, myths such as JFK described, ones like the “Oswald Alone” theory, will be banished forever so that the truth may shine through. In this case, thanks to a remarkable, courageous journalist, one called “the most powerful voice in America.”
Mark Shaw is a former criminal defense lawyer, legal analyst for USA Today, ESPN, and CNN, and the author of 25 books including “The Poison Patriarch,” “Miscarriage of Justice,” and “Beneath the Mask of Holiness.” More about Mr. Shaw, a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors who has written for Huffington Post, the New York Daily News, USA Today and the Aspen Daily News, may be learned at www.markshawbooks.com and www.thereporterwhoknewtoomuch.com
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