[From the diaries by susanhu. Will we ever get this story? Will we ever get the withheld government documents]
I wrote this in response to Max Holland’s awful piece about last fall’s JFK conference in DC, which I also attended and wrote up at Robert Parry’s site. Sometimes I write a letter to the editor hoping to get published. Sometimes I write hoping to actually inform someone of something. The latter was my motivation in this particular case. Here it is. I know those of you who share my passion for Real History will agree with the sentiment at the end. (I’ve also added a few links for the curious.)
Dear Editors,
I was shocked that you allowed Max Holland to comment on the recent JFK Conference. He’s already shown his lack of journalistic integrity on the subject. In the current piece, he made the bald-faced lie that “In point of fact, 99.99 percent of the HSCA’s report improved upon or underscored the accuracy of the Warren Report’s key findings.” It did nothing of the sort, as those of us in the research community who have actually READ the HSCA’s report know very well. Is there no fact checker at The Nation?
When you rightly avoided publishing his article espousing the notion that the KGB caused Americans to suspect CIA involvement in the JFK case, he took it to the CIA, which published it happily, since it exculpated them of any involvement in the Kennedy assassination. But that’s not necessarily a new relationship. Holland got his early start with the Voice of America, a well-known outlet for the CIA’s propaganda during the Cold War.
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In fact, that was the pattern at the conference, which I also attended. While most leading researchers on the case believe elements of the CIA were directly involved, those who take the opposite view, like Holland, invariably end up having a cozy relationship with the chief suspect.
It should embarrass you to learn that Holland omitted mention of the most interesting and heated exchange at the conference. Two speakers rose to debate the acoustic evidence on which the HSCA based its conclusion of “probable conspiracy.” The first, Richard Garwin, said the sound evidence was off by a second, and therefore proved nothing. The second, Don Thomas, said that Garwin was using a different copy of the audio tape, proven by the number on the tape, and that the discrepancy was attributed to its being a copy. Thomas then showed how the sound evidence matched perfectly with all the extant video evidence. It was a stunning refutation of Garwin’s weak defense of the non-conspiracy view.
Would it surprise you to learn that Garwin was, as he admitted publicly when challenged, a CIA man? As a conference participant, I found that confession stunning. As a “journalist”, Max Holland didn’t even find that worthy of mention.
Is Max Holland a CIA asset at The Nation? If he is, that’s a tragedy for the nation and The Nation. If he isn’t, he’s simply a guy who, for whatever private reason, is more comfortable repeating the assertions of others than uncovering the truth. And his “99.99%” statement shows he’s willing to lie to do so. So it hardly matters if he’s CIA or not. Whatever he is, he sure doesn’t belong at The Nation.
We continue to learn every day how official lies bring heinous tragedy upon the innocent. His perversions of history do no less damage. We can’t learn the lessons of history when he presents a false version of it.
Lisa Pease
