CIA Instructions to Media
Assets
This document caused quite
a stir when it was discovered in 1977. Dated 4/1/67, and marked "DESTROY WHEN NO
LONGER NEEDED", this document is a stunning testimony to how concerned the CIA
was over investigations into the Kennedy assassination. Emphasis has been added
to facilitate scanning.
CIA Document #1035-960, marked
"PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations, in the division "CS",
the Clandestine Services, sometimes known as the "dirty tricks" department.
RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren
Report
1. Our Concern.
From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation
about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by
the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964),
various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and
documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of
books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the
critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and
often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a
result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public
opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think
that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the
Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show
similar, or possibly more adverse results.
2. This trend of opinion
is a matter of concern to the U.S.
government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission
were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They
represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn
from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the
Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt
on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an
increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person
who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the
assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual
concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our
organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed
information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown
suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey
Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering
and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the
circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is
supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.
3. Action. We do not recommend
that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not
already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are
requested:
a. To
discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly
elite contacts (especially politicians and editors),
pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as
humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious
foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the
hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk
appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to
use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.
b. To
employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the
attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly
appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified
attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for
passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the
critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II)
politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and
inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In
the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful
strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the
attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although
Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly
where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to
answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)
4. In private to media discussions
not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which
may be yet forthcoming, the following
arguments should be useful:
a.
No significant new evidence has emerged
which the Commission did not consider. The
assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten and Bertrand
Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the attack on the
Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits have been
convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics. (A
better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire
of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P. Taylor, D.C.
Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative, without
acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on
the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the
world that the Nazis were to blame.)
b. Critics usually overvalue
particular items and ignore others. They tend
to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses
(which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence
offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and
photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will
usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of
context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.
c.
Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be
impossible to conceal in the United States,
esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note
that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's
brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as
one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held
his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and Senator
Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on
the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose
a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his
control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that
the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have
arranged much more secure conditions.
d. Critics have often been
enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they
light on some theory and fall in love with it;
they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every
question with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of
the Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against
over-commitment to any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of
probabilities into certainties.
e.
Oswald would not have
been any sensible person's choice for a co-conspirator. He was a "loner,"
mixed up, of questionable reliability and an
unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service.
[Archivist's note: This claim is demonstrably
untrue with the latest file releases. The CIA had an operational interest in
Oswald less than a month before the assassination. Source: Oswald and the
CIA, John Newman and newly released files from the National Archives.]
f. As to charges that the
Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the
deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to
speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of
irresponsible speculation
already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing
to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.
g.
Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people
have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way
e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part
died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the
FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re
interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be
expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious
deaths" line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on
his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on
collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge
abutment.)
5. Where possible, counter
speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself.
Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness,
objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked.
Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to
add to their account the idea
that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior
to the work of its critics.
Reproduced from:
http://www.webcom.com/~lpease/collections/assassinations/jfk/cia-inst.htm
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