I remember seeing Posner many years ago on some stupid TV talk show giving a synopsis of his book on the Kennedy assassination. He was very persuasive. I don't really believe in the lone gunman theory anymore but he made it believable for a whole lot of people.
Great debate. A personal note. My wife and I were in the audience at the University of Hartford in the early 1970s when Mark Lane first showed a pirated copy of the famous Zapruder film. We were all blown away. Lane came as I recall at the behest of Michael Evica, a colleague in the English Dept., who had written a book on Oswald's rifle. One thing that did not come up in the Stone/Posner debate (and that is important for newbies in these matters) is HOW the phony assassination narative could possibly have been sold so effectively to the American people early on. The answer, as I'm sure Stone knows, is that the CIA--through Operation Mockingbird--had reporters on the payroll at important media outlets (including "Life" Magazine and the "Washington Post") and hundreds of salaried and contract employees scattered throughout the national media and communications industry. The purpose, of course, was to slant stories and "analysis" of events in way favorable to the CIA agenda (especially on foreign policy and issues of national security). For example, as we have recently learned, it was the CIA that hand-delivered the still photos taken from the Zapruder filmstrip that appeared in that famous "Life" magazine post-assassination issue, the one with Kennedy's face on the cover. And it was the CIA that had taken the film from Zapruder the day after the Kennedy murder and had delivered it to the super-secret National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC)in D.C. where the "Life" photo stills were "prepared" (or edited as some scholars maintain). "Life", of course, as well "Time" and all of the other important publications and media networks, would all fell into line behind the Warren Commission conclusions for decades. No surprise, really.
I remember seeing Posner many years ago on some stupid TV talk show giving a synopsis of his book on the Kennedy assassination. He was very persuasive. I don't really believe in the lone gunman theory anymore but he made it believable for a whole lot of people.
ReplyDeleteGreat debate. A personal note. My wife and I were in the audience at the University of Hartford in the early 1970s when Mark Lane first showed a pirated copy of the famous Zapruder film. We were all blown away. Lane came as I recall at the behest of Michael Evica, a colleague in the English Dept., who had written a book on Oswald's rifle. One thing that did not come up in the Stone/Posner debate (and that is important for newbies in these matters) is HOW the phony assassination narative could possibly have been sold so effectively to the American people early on. The answer, as I'm sure Stone knows, is that the CIA--through Operation Mockingbird--had reporters on the payroll at important media outlets (including "Life" Magazine and the "Washington Post") and hundreds of salaried and contract employees scattered throughout the national media and communications industry. The purpose, of course, was to slant stories and "analysis" of events in way favorable to the CIA agenda (especially on foreign policy and issues of national security). For example, as we have recently learned, it was the CIA that hand-delivered the still photos taken from the Zapruder filmstrip that appeared in that famous "Life" magazine post-assassination issue, the one with Kennedy's face on the cover. And it was the CIA that had taken the film from Zapruder the day after the Kennedy murder and had delivered it to the super-secret National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC)in D.C. where the "Life" photo stills were "prepared" (or edited as some scholars maintain). "Life", of course, as well "Time" and all of the other important publications and media networks, would all fell into line behind the Warren Commission conclusions for decades. No surprise, really.
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