{"id":108867,"date":"2018-11-23T07:01:03","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T11:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=108867"},"modified":"2018-11-23T07:04:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T11:04:44","slug":"jfk-mass-media-and-the-origins-of-conspiracy-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=108867","title":{"rendered":"JFK, MASS MEDIA, AND THE ORIGINS OF \u201cCONSPIRACY THEORY"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by James Tracy<\/p>\n

Prefatory Note on Censorship in Academe<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This study was written in 2013-14 as part of my academic research as Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University. I have had numerous papers addressing news coverage of historical events published in academic journals over the past two decades. However, this was the first attempt to offer a scholarly treatment of a research object related to a conspiracy\u2013how the news media \u201cframed\u201d New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison\u2019s JFK assassination inquiry.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I presented the paper at the Association For Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Montreal Conference in 2014 the panel respondent congratulated me on what he deemed to be a very well-researched and written manuscript. He further remarked that it was at most a draft or two away from submission for editorial review at a scholarly journal. I was also confident the study would eventually achieve publication.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The paper was subsequently rejected by five journals out-of-hand. The editors refused to even send the paper out for review, which never occurred to me before. Notably, each editor provided a different reason for not wanting to give it further consideration. What is more, three of the venues had published my work in previous years. The paper nevertheless offers a timely contribution to understanding the historical origins of the term \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d and its development from perhaps\u00a0<\/i>the\u00a0most momentous event in 20th century American politics.<\/i><\/p>\n

This helped me to further realize how despite celebrated notions of unbridled inquiry and academic freedom, certain subjects so historically central to the nation\u2019s history in fact remain taboo among academics\u2013those\u00a0entrusted by society to research such matters\u2013vis-\u00e1-vis their counterparts in professional journalism, with both camps still proceeding in tacit agreement to police the boundaries of permissible discourse and thought. -JFT<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that certain elements of the mass media have an active interest in preventing this case from ever coming to trial at all and find it necessary to employ against me every smear device in the book.\u201d \u2013Jim Garrison (Playboy 1967)<\/p>\n

The news media\u2019s failure to interrogate and question the \u201cthe lone assassin\u201d theory by the 1964 Presidents Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, otherwise known as the Warren Commission, should be recognized as one of the greatest episodes of journalistic misconduct in US history. The mass media have played a pivotal role in the coverup of the Kennedy (JFK) assassination that they unabashedly practice to this day. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison\u2019s investigation of the November 22, 1963 event was the first substantial challenge to the official narrative. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) countered Garrison\u2019s efforts by calling upon its media assets to directly attack, defame, even sabotage the inquiry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
(AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From this episode the CIA developed one of its most potent psychological weapons against political dissent: the \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d label. Over its 50-year lifespan the label has time and again demonstrated its effectiveness in policing the public sphere by calling into question the credibility and even the sanity of journalists, academics, or any other public figure that dares question authorized myths for the masses.<\/p>\n

The effectiveness of the deterrent is observable, for example, in the controversy surrounding a remark by then-US Secretary of State John Kerry upon the assassination\u2019s 50th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary. \u201cTo this day,\u201d Kerry said in a televised interview, \u201cI have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.\u201d A few days later NBC\u2019s Meet the Press host David Gregory challenged Kerry on the remark. \u201cThat certainly would be surprising to a lot of people that doubt your views. Would you care to elaborate?\u201d \u201cNo. I just have a point of view,\u201d Kerry responded, signaling his wish to curtail further discussion. \u201cAnd I`m not going to get into that.\u201d \u201cDo you think,\u201d Gregory persisted, \u201cthe conspiracy theories\u2014[Lee Harvey Oswald\u2019s] involvement with Russia [or] motivation from the Soviet Union or Cuba are valid at some level?\u201d Kerry again refused further comment (Gregory 2013). Thereafter the prominent statesman\u2019s skepticism set off a firestorm of commentary and debate throughout major news outlets.<\/p>\n

This specific instance characterizes how major US news media have tended to peremptorily frame and interpret alternative perspectives and analyses of highly questionable public events that have in many cases been defined by authorized sources. In the aftermath of the JFK assassination and the Warren Commission ostensibly detailed inquiry in to the event, influential US news media became principal supporters to what came to be known as the Commission\u2019s \u201clone assassin\u201d account\u2013that an estranged and radicalized Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole malefactor in the slaying.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the press coverage of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison\u2019s subsequent investigation of figures and events leading to JFK\u2019s assassination. Lasting from late 1966 to March 1969, Garrison\u2019s inquiry is noteworthy as it more deeply interrogated the episode, linking it to the inner dynamics of the US intelligence community. Garrison\u2019s findings have largely withstood vigorous scrutiny of independent historians who since 1992 have worked with the aid of copious records made available under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act.<\/p>\n

The array of reportage and commentary centering on the Garrison investigation is significant to further understanding the intersection of political events and journalism history for three reasons. First, such coverage vis-\u00e0-vis pertinent historical documentation and research suggests coordination between the US intelligence community and the press. Such an arrangement calls into question a fairly commonplace notion of a free press acting as a watchdog over the national security state. Second, stemming from this brief yet significant chapter in national history a propaganda technique arises that is now routinely employed to identify and negate authoritative challenges to official narratives of important political phenomena.<\/p>\n

This is often accomplished in the framing of a public organization or personage as irrational and corrupt. More specifically, it is around Garrison that the term \u201cconspiracy theorist\u201d begins to gain the discursive timbre that transformed it into such a powerful depreciative marker. Finally, documentation suggests how along these lines the press is made a precision tool to shape public discourse and belief\u2014in this case on an event of foremost national concern\u2014in very specific ways. To this day the \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d categorization is used to influence public debate and knowledge on pressing issues and incidents, particularly through intimidation of participants and observers alike, thereby aiding to define the overall parameters of exchange.<\/p>\n

The study below is divided into four sections. The first provides a historical context for situating the analysis of press coverage of the investigation, including the Central Intelligence Agency\u2019s historical efforts in shaping foreign and domestic public opinion through its influential relationship with US news media. A second part considers the institutional and subtextual dynamics contributing to the \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d term and its mobilization in Garrison investigation coverage. The third portion provides an overview of framing research, the method and data sample of the coverage, and an outlining and description of the specific frames major media constructed to introduce and report on the investigation. Finally, a concluding set of observations is presented to consider the findings and their implications for news media history and research.[1]<\/p>\n

The CIA and US News Media<\/strong><\/p>\n

The relationship between the CIA and US news media following World War II played out along two varying trajectories, one of which involved an affinity shared between CIA officers and prominent journalists and publishers as the Cold War took shape, and the second comprising the Agency\u2019s more forceful yet covert infiltration of the press corps.<\/p>\n

The fight against Communism provided for a perceived set of shared interests between national duty, intelligence practices, and the routines of journalism. Because the US was in a struggle with totalitarianism abroad, the opportunity to offer ones services in providing information to CIA personnel and even authoring or publishing stories that would further Agency interests, appeared justified.<\/p>\n

At the time important newspaper editors and correspondents identified with CIA people in terms of not only a shared nationalism, but in cultural and professional senses as well. According to historian Katherine Olmsted (1996, p. 22), the CIA\u2019s relationship with major news media was often rooted in the old school tie. \u201cThe early CIA was renowned for recruiting from Ivy League schools,\u201d Olmsted observes. \u201cTop agency officials often had attended Princeton or Yale with the publishers or editors of eastern newspapers\u2014and their reporters as well.\u201d Here many agents and leading journalists \u201cattended the same dinner parties, joined the same country clubs, and shared the same assumptions about the CIA\u2019s role in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the Agency\u2019s effort to exploit the press was also more formal. From the end of World War Two through at least the early 1970s the CIA was actively involved in programs to influence public opinion within the United States and abroad through what came to be known as Operation Mockingbird. Headed by CIA Office of Policy Coordination director Frank Wisner, Mockingbird was conceived in 1948 and fostered amicable relations and contacts with news outlets. Such relationships were fostered to have desirable stories placed in prominent publications promoting Agency objectives.<\/p>\n

One of Wisner\u2019s early allies was\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0publisher Phillip Graham, who benefited through Agency subsidization of foreign correspondents working under Agency auspices. In accord with the CIA\u2019s mission under the 1947 National Security Act to only operate abroad, Mockingbird was initially envisioned by Wisner and Graham \u201cto give foreign peoples a sense of America, to \u2018alter their perceptions\u2019 against Communism without violence.\u201d Graham aided the endeavor by recruiting journalists for that purpose (Davis 1979, p. 138). Once in motion, however, reporters and news outlets were inevitably used within the US to sway public opinion on Agency-related concerns, such as facilitating public sentiment toward US Cold War efforts.<\/p>\n

Oversight of the CIA press relations program was restricted to top Agency officials. This select few also directly involved themselves in cultivating relations with the heads of major press outlets, including CIA Directors Allen Dulles and Richard Helms (a one-time UPI correspondent) (Bernstein 1977). Within a few short years Mockingbird was fully operational. In addition to Graham\u2019s participation, one author suggests how Wisner and his cohorts effectively \u201c\u2019owned\u2019 respected members of the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, CBS, and other communications vehicles,\u201d in addition to several hundred stringers (Davis 1979, p. 139).<\/p>\n

As former\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0reporter Carl Bernstein similarly demonstrates, declassified Agency files indicate<\/p>\n

\u201cthe CIA in the 1950s, \u201860s and even early \u201870s had concentrated its relationships with journalists in the most prominent sectors of the American press corps, including four or five of the largest newspapers in the country, the broadcast networks and the two major newsweekly magazines [Time<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>]\u201d (Bernstein 1977).<\/p>\n

The Agency\u2019s associations with journalists fell under several categories depending on specific purpose and affiliation. Some positions were readily compensated and others were more voluntary. These included<\/p>\n

*Legitimate, accredited staff members of news organizations, usually reporters \u2026 This group includes many of the best known journalists who carried out tasks for the CIA.\"\"<\/a>*Stringers and freelancers \u2026 some filed news stories; others reported only for the CIA \u2026 Their journalistic credentials were often supplied by cooperating news organizations. *Employees of so-called CIA \u201cproprietaries,\u201d e.g. \u201csecretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers\u2013 both English and foreign language.\u201d<\/p>\n

*Editors, publishers and broadcast network executive.<\/p>\n

*Columnists and commentators \u2026 referred to at the Agency as \u201cknown assets\u201d [who] can be counted on to perform a variety of undercover tasks (Bernstein 1977).<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0magazines were both utilized by the CIA, according to files that \u201ccontain written agreements with former foreign correspondents and stringers for both the weekly news magazines,\u201d Bernstein reports. Further, when\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0was bought by the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0Company in 1961\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0publisher Phillip Graham, already well-acquainted with Agency operations, \u201cwas informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Graham committed suicide in 1963,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u2019s coverage of the Garrison investigation suggests that such arrangements were still extant through the late 1960s. A similar arrangement existed at Time-Life, where Life publisher C.D. Jackson acted as liaison between the CIA and publisher Henry Luce. Jackson \u201capproved specific arrangements for providing CIA employees with Time-Life cover.\u201d Some contacts were made with the understanding of Hedley Donovan, who took over the editorial reins of Time Inc. in 1959. According to former CIA officer William Bader, \u201cYou don\u2019t need to manipulate\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine \u2026 because there are Agency people at the management level.\u201d<\/p>\n

US News and World Report<\/em>, an outlet sharing many of the CIA\u2019s Cold War views, sought to curtail relations with the Agency and would not submit to providing cover for its activities. This was oddly the case even though the magazine\u2019s founding editor David Lawrence was a personal friend of Allen Dulles (Bernstein 1977).<\/p>\n

On the whole, throughout the Cold War major US news media became appreciably bound up in Agency endeavors. As political scientist Loch Johnson observes, \u201cWherever one stood normatively on this issue, one fact was incontrovertible: the CIA-media relationship had evolved by the late 1950s into a complicated matrix of people, activities, and bonds of association\u201d (Johnson 1989, p. 184). Further confirmation of this rapport is realized in the Agency\u2019s own internal memoranda.<\/p>\n

Dispatch 1035-960<\/strong><\/p>\n

The degree to which press integrity was compromised is important for interpreting coverage of the Garrison inquiry. There is little doubt that the Agency strategized to deflect criticism of Warren Commission findings. Perhaps the most unambiguous artifact in this regard is CIA Document 1035-960. An April 1, 1967 dispatch released under a 1977\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0Freedom of Information request, 1035-960 addressed Agency foreign field offices overseeing \u201cpropaganda assets\u201d at major news outlets (New York Times<\/em>\u00a01977, p. A37).<\/p>\n

The communication expressed concern over public questioning of the \u201clone assassin\u201d account. \u201cPresumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission\u2019s report,\u201d the communiqu\u00e9 read, \u201ca 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.\u201d Concern ensued that overseas polls might soon mirror those in the US (\u201cCIA Dispatch\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Garrison\u2019s investigation had the potential to bolster such public skepticism on an international scale. As a World War Two veteran and popularly elected figure, Garrison exuded credibility. Further, with the power to subpoena documents and witnesses, and to compel sworn testimony, he could not be easily dismissed as another \u201cconspiracy buff.\u201d As\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1968, p. 74) openly remarked, Garrison was \u201cthe first conspiracy addict with the power to do more than talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

1035-960 recommended discussing \u201cthe publicity problem\u201d with \u201cfriendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)\u201d, to emphasize the Warren Commission\u2019s conclusions. It further provided instructions for delegitimizing public figures by calling into question their motives and reasoning capacities.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further, the terms \u201cconspiracy theories\/theorists\u201d are presented in the memo\u2019s introductory paragraphs, with variants of the expression and subtle suggestions of their intended meaning throughout, alluding to how \u201ccountering and discrediting\u201d Warren Report critics should proceed (\u201cCIA Dispatch\u201d). It is to a brief discussion of these now commonplace terms and their construction in the framing process to which the essay now turns.<\/p>\n

Framing \u201cBig Jim\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Journalists are routinely involved in conveying information through narrative design. Such narratives typically cohere around the objects of reportage. In answering the who, what, where, when, how and why, a basic frame for the story takes shape. By emphasizing or downplaying specific features in the story, and by juxtaposing particular words, phrases, expressions, quotes from sources, a more discernible frame emerges from which a readership imparts and derives meaning.<\/p>\n

Frames, as discursive precursors of meaning, are often prescriptive in nature, suggesting to readers how something should be regarded and even acted upon. As Entman (1993, p. 52 emphasis retained) observes, \u201cTo frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, moral evaluation, and\/or treatment recommendation for the item described.\u201d In describing depicted objects the cumulative set of frames shape public opinion toward the given phenomena.<\/p>\n

Human beings naturally seek to derive meaning from symbols and the ideas they prompt, and a story\u2019s frame suggests how given characters might be regarded. Suggestion or more direct reference to the bizarre, paranoid or conspiratorial cohere in ways that constitute an \u201cother.\u201d \u201cWhenever \u2018others\u2019 are constructed,\u201d Husting and Orr (2007, p. 129) argue, \u201cthey call into being their opposite: an imagined community of \u2018people like us\u2019 that can be used to create a manipulable public.\u201d A foremost technique along these lines is the \u201cconspiracy theory\/ist\u201d label that \u201ccan deflect attention from the claims at hand and shift discourse to the nature of the claimant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cConspiracy theory,\u201d \u201cassassination theory\u201d and similar characterizations are routinely used throughout Garrison investigation coverage. Such terms situate the inquiry in a broader lexicon of meaning. Stuart Hall et al., (1978 pp. 54-55) note how \u201can event only \u2018makes sense\u2019 if it can be located within a range of\u201d commonly held \u201csocial and cultural identifications\u201d or \u201ccultural \u2018maps\u2019 of the social world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the cumulative interplay of news frames and such widely held intellectual formations, these chartings can be refashioned over time, with the broader public\u2019s preconceptions and expectations toward certain identifications influenced accordingly. As Ralph Miliband (1969, p. 238) notes, media representations can cultivate \u201ca climate of conformity\u201d through the \u201cpresentation of views which fall outside the consensus as curious heresies, or, even more effectively, by treating them as irrelevant eccentricities, which serious and reasonable people may dismiss as of no consequence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the framing regimen applied to Garrison closely parallels the formula suggested in 1035-960 that demonstrated to Agency operatives the subtleties of the symbolic mechanism itself. As political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith (2013, p. 116-117) observes, the dispatch employed a resourceful social scientific approach that anticipated \u201chow mass publics think about politics and political issues.\u201d At this rough historical juncture the construction of the \u201cconspiracy theorist\u201d political type and the mental impressions prompted and associated with it developed.<\/p>\n

Instead of recommending the overt use of the \u201cconspiracy theory\/theorist\u201d label to assail public figures, the 1035-960 communiqu\u00e9 modeled a technique for the broader configuration of the conspiratorial sort in the public mind through its own oblique phrasing; \u201cthat is,\u201d deHaven-Smith explains, \u201cby contrasting\u201d JFK assassination researchers \u201cwith other groups, speculating on their motives, identifying groups with which they are distant or close, and so on. As the group is given a place among other groups in the listener\u2019s belief system, it becomes, in effect, alive and endowed with personality in the observer\u2019s imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus to a significant degree with the growing controversy surrounding the Warren Report and the emergence of District Attorney Jim Garrison\u2019s formal investigation of the murder, a new archetype was at least tentatively brought forth upon the American political landscape. To recap, by the 1960s the CIA had a substantial number of contacts and associates within major news media. Document 1035-960 outlines a strategy for defending the Warren Report. These details suggest at least limited participation of the Agency in setting the tone of public discourse surrounding Garrison\u2019s inquiry.<\/p>\n

By repeatedly locating Jim Garrison and his associates in unambiguous milieu and relating them to other social actors\u2013frames through which the whole investigation was publicly presented\u2014major news outlets under analysis aided in delegitimizing the district attorney\u2019s case and impeded his ability to successfully carry it out. The essay now turns to closer analyses of the specific ways in which the overall conspiratorial frame is developed in the context of the Garrison probe.<\/p>\n

Methodology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given space constraints of this submission a data sample was gathered from major US newsweeklies that generally reflects the news frame through which the Garrison investigation was presented. The inquiry became public on February 17, 1967 with an article in the\u00a0New Orleans States-Item<\/em>\u00a0and concluded on March 1, 1969 with the acquittal of defendant Clay Shaw for his alleged involvement in the assassination. Searches via the H.W. Wilson Readers\u2019 Guide Retrospective 1890-1982 were conducted for\u00a0Time<\/em>,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>, and\u00a0US News and World Report<\/em>\u00a0from October 1, 1966 to June 31, 1969 using the terms \u201cJohn F. Kennedy\u201d and \u201cassassination\u201d or \u201cJim Garrison\u201d in all text fields.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The New JFK Show #218 Operation Mockingbird (15 November 2018)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

This yielded 60 articles, 13 of which centered on controversy surrounding the Kennedy family-authorized William Manchester book\u00a0The Death of a President<\/em>. The sample was narrowed to 27 articles on Garrison and\/or his investigation (Time<\/em>\u00a011,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a014,\u00a0US News<\/em>\u00a02), and eight pieces establishing the \u201cassassination-conspiracy theory\u201d notion vis-\u00e0-vis the JFK assassination (Time<\/em>\u00a03,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a03,\u00a0US News<\/em>2) appearing from October to December 1966 not directly related to Garrison. These eight articles form the basis of a discernible preliminary frame Garrison is ultimately positioned in.<\/p>\n

Three overarching frames emerge around the investigation early on and endure throughout the coverage. Each adheres in some degree to the formula presented in 1035-960. The above suggests how\u00a0Time<\/em>and\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0were likely more susceptible to CIA manipulation than\u00a0US News<\/em>. This is at least partly upheld in the sheer number of\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0articles focusing on the Garrison probe.<\/p>\n

Frame one, \u201cAmateur Sherlocks,\u201d emerges in the immediate months leading up to the Garrison inquiry going public. Here the activities of mainly non-credentialed researchers questioning the Warren Report are highlighted. This frame carries over to coverage of Garrison, whose investigation is presented as reckless and speculative, and reliant on dubious investigative methods.<\/p>\n

The second frame, \u201cBig Jim\u2019s Odd Company,\u201d situates Garrison in the exoticized milieu of New Orleans itself, a city replete with a seemingly bizarre atmosphere and set of characters that includes Garrison and his staff. Here Garrison\u2019s purported unprofessional habits and investigative methods are centered on vis-\u00e0-vis the suspects.<\/p>\n

Frame three, \u201cJolly Green Giant,\u201d is established in the first and second frames as it accentuates Garrison\u2019s alleged political opportunism and behavior. This frame is strengthened via positive treatment afforded principal suspect Clay Shaw.<\/p>\n

US News & World Report<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Unlike\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>,\u00a0US News & World Report<\/em>, while supportive of the Warren Report (US News & World Report 1966), provided little coverage to Garrison\u2019s investigation throughout its two year span. A brief piece appeared in early March 1967 (US News & World Report<\/em>\u00a01967a) highlighting Shaw\u2019s arrest and concluding with dismissive remarks from President Lyndon Johnson\u2019s Attorney General Ramsey Clark on Garrison\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n

This was followed in June with a two-page treatment centering on Garrison\u2019s observations of probable FBI and CIA involvement in an assassination cover-up. US News straightforwardly counters Garrison\u2019s allegations by referencing the Warren Report\u2019s finality alongside refutations from FBI and CIA spokesmen. Even Texas Governor John Connally, \u201csaid he has \u2018almost seen enough\u2019 to be convinced there is nothing of substance in the New Orleans investigation. That is the conclusion of all informed officials reached by U.S. News & World Report\u201d (US News & World Report<\/em>\u00a01967b, p. 56). The magazine\u2019s limited attention to the probe contrasts sharply with the extraordinary nature and degree of coverage afforded by its counterparts.<\/p>\n

Frame One: \u201cAmateur Sherlocks\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the third anniversary of President Kennedy\u2019s assassination approached,\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0focused on public skepticism of the Warren Report by depicting those questioning the \u201clone assassin theory\u201d as incompetent researchers, even mentally unbalanced\u2014a frame that would come to rest around Garrison. Further, there is an overall suspicion of how uncredentialed researchers may be influencing public opinion toward the assassination. This apprehension frequently assumes a sarcastic tone. For example, Newsweek explains how \u201camateur scholars\u201d venture to the National Archives in Washington DC. There \u201calmost any day, a visitor can find one or two instant historians poring over some 300 cubic feet of evidence generated by the assassination\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01966a, p. 37).<\/p>\n

In this manner the researchers are driven by faith more than reason. \u201c[D]issent has become a cult with its own true disbelievers\u2014a subculture of assassination buffs who obsessively probe the massive record, swap their findings, and publish new and even more elaborate conspiracy theories.\u201d The effect of such research,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>notes, is evident in recent opinion polls indicating \u201cthree fifths of the American public doubts the assassination was the work of one man\u2014nearly double the level of two years ago\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01966a, p. 37).<\/p>\n

One week later\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0addressed researcher queries over what parties possessed evidence of Kennedy\u2019s autopsy. \u201cOf all the loose ends in the John F. Kennedy murder case,\u201d the newsweekly began, \u201cfew have so fascinated the conspiracy theorists as a single mystery within a mystery: what became of the photos and x-rays of the JFK autopsy.\u201d The \u201cmystery within a mystery\u201d was solved when it was discovered that the documents \u201chad been in the possession of the Kennedy family all along.\u201d The Kennedys deposited the autopsy records at the National Archive, demanding they be sealed for five years (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01966b, p. 30).<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0subsequently devoted five pages to addressing further skepticism over the official assassination theory after Governor Connally, who accompanied JFK in the presidential limousine on November 22, suggested that the President and he were struck by separate bullets.\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0downplayed Connally\u2019s assertions, even as it reported that major news outlets \u201ccalled for new investigations\u2014or for fresh answers from the commission.\u201d The magazine countered that any \u201cnew investigating body could, in the main, only ponder and judge the same imperfect body of evidence,\u201d and that \u201cthere could be no final certainties\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01966c, p. 26).<\/p>\n

The article was followed by a lengthy piece from\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0White House correspondent Charles Roberts (1966, p. 27) recounting how many eyewitness accounts he documented firsthand in the immediate aftermath of the assassination \u201cwere the product of imagination, shock, confusion, and something much worse\u2014a macabre desire on the part of some bystanders to be identified with a great tragedy or to pretend greater firsthand knowledge of the event than they possessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts explains how the \u201cseeds of the \u2018conspiracy\u2019 or \u2018second gunman\u2019 theory of the Kennedy murder were sown\u201d outside Parkland Hospital, with one journalist noting \u201cwhat appeared to be a small bullet hole in the front windshield of the President\u2019s car.\u201d This, along with one surgeon telling reporters \u201cthat \u2018there was an entrance wound below [JFK\u2019s] Adam\u2019s apple\u201d disturbingly results in a single author \u201cand a legion of amateur sleuths who followed in his footsteps to pose the theory that a gunman other than Oswald fired from in front of the Kennedy car\u201d (Roberts 1966, p. 28).<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u2019s coverage similarly addressed unauthorized research on the assassination as the work of \u201cmythmakers,\u201d \u201cconspiracy theorists,\u201d and \u201camateur sherlocks.\u201d With the Kennedys\u2019 handover of autopsy documents to the National Archive, for example,\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0pointed to \u201cthe conspiracy theorists claiming that the doctor\u2019s entire autopsy report had been tailor-made to bolster the commission\u2019s single bullet theory. The doubters,\u201d\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0continues, \u201cargued that 1) the bullet was probably lower on Kennedy\u2019s back, and 2) the first bullet had actually lodged in his body\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01966a, p. 33).<\/p>\n

Another article in the same issue addresses journalist Penn Jones Jr.\u2019s interrogation of unusual deaths surrounding the assassination and the Warren Commission\u2019s investigation. \u201cFor many who believe that there was a conspiracy to assassinate John Kennedy in Dallas,\u201d\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0observes, \u201cthe most mesmeric argument of all is that an extraordinary number of people involved in the case\u2014however remotely\u2014have since lost their lives under mysterious circumstances \u2026To conspiracy theorists, the clear implication is that the victims know too much and were systematically liquidated\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01966b, p. 33).<\/p>\n

Much like\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>,\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1966c, p. 34-35) highlights the apparent pedestrian preoccupation with research disputing the Warren Report\u2019s conclusions. Disturbingly, \u201cno less than 54% of all Americans now think the commission left \u2018a lot of unanswered questions about who killed Kennedy.\u2019\u201d The newsweekly likewise points to \u201cAmateur Sherlocks\u201d that \u201chave besieged the National Archives with requests to see the President\u2019s autopsy x rays and photographs.\u201d Such \u201c[s]elf-appointed investigators\u201d and \u201ccocktail party dissenters\u201d comprising a \u201ccult of parlor detectives\u201d \u201care at work throughout the nation.\u201d Motivated through a sort of elusive faith, the novices \u201chave in effect turned the quest for the \u2018real assassin\u2019 into an evangelistic vocation.\u201d According to Time, the \u201cchief stimulant\u201d of the mass \u201cphantasmagoria\u201d involves \u201can outpouring of critical books on the subject,\u201d in particular attorney Mark Lane\u2019s\u00a0Rush to Judgment<\/em>, \u201ca staggering accumulation of minutiae and half-truths based on minutiae.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the whole, there are simply too many assassination theories, most of which are \u201ctenuous and documentably [sic] erroneous.\u201d Although Governor Connally adamantly maintains \u201c\u2019that one bullet caused the president\u2019s first wound, and that an entirely separate shot struck\u201d him,\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1966c, p. 35) concludes alongside Newsweek that \u201clacking any new evidence\u201d there is no need for \u201ca new investigation\u201d since \u201cin crucial areas \u2026 no firm facts exist\u201d). Months later Jim Garrison is encompassed in \u201cAmateur Sherlocks\u201d frame as a sort of gatecrasher. Because he is asking difficult questions concerning the JFK assassination he might be easily mocked or ignored like novice researchers. Yet as an elected law enforcement official Garrison\u2019s professional discernment and overall trustworthiness are repeatedly targeted throughout the newsweeklies\u2019 coverage.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0observes how Garrison is prone to \u201cwide-ranging accusations. But unlike other commission critics doubting Oswald\u2019s guilt, the burly, boisterous district attorney has all the powers of his office\u2014to subpoena witnesses, to make arrests, and to procure search warrants\u201d (\u201cHistory or Headlines\u201d). This was too much power for an \u201cinvestigation-happy\u201d prosecutor prone to conducting a \u201cCarnival in New Orleans\u201d while claiming \u201che had cracked the murder mystery of the century.\u201d\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0argued how Garrison was a victim of his own fantasies. The \u201cconspiracy in New Orleans\u201d involved \u201ca plot of Garrison\u2019s own making. It is a scheme to concoct a fantastic \u2018solution\u2019 to the death of John F. Kennedy, and to make it stick\u201d (Aynesworth 1967, p. 36).<\/p>\n

Where\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0raises Garrison\u2019s judgment,\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0tends toward more straightforward caricature, repeatedly emphasizing the official\u2019s physical appearance and demeanor. \u201cThe larger than life (6 ft. 6 in.) district attorney of New Orleans has tilted at windmills and gin mills, chastened Bourbon Street\u2019s once-famed B-girls, scourged the judiciary and battled with the mayor.\u201d Yet \u201cGarrison\u2019s investigation of \u2018several plots\u2019 to kill President Kennedy has yielded the most rococo tale yet to emerge from that tragic day in Dallas\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01967a, p. 33). \u201cBig Jim Garrison \u2026 [t]he towering (6 ft. 6 in.) district attorney of New Orleans\u201d was leading a \u201csensational crusade to unmask a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Garrison\u2019s researchers were awkward and inept. \u201cHis sleuths, like small boys overturning a rock in a muddy field, have uncovered all manner of seemy, unsavory creatures with curious links to Oswald\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01967b, p. 24). \u201cGarrison\u2019s spectacular investigation\u201d proceeded, and was \u201cbarely distinguishable from circus sideshow.\u201d Time misleadingly titled its story, \u201cThe D.A. Wins a Round\u201d that reluctantly announced how the case would go to trial (Time 1967c, p. 33).<\/p>\n

Garrison\u2019s apparent incompetence is accentuated by a second powerful frame situating his investigation within presumably sordid surroundings and relationships that likely appeared fictional to much of 1960s middle America.<\/p>\n

Frame Two: \u201cBig Jim\u2019s Odd Company\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second frame focuses on New Orleans\u2019 unusual cultures and inhabitants, thus correspondingly accentuating Garrison\u2019s unconventional demeanor established in Frame One. For example, Newsweek\u2019s initial story spotlights suspect David Ferrie, who died mysteriously days after being questioned by Garrison\u2019s team. \u201cDavid William Ferrie was an exotic,\u201d\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0begins. \u201cHis appearance was outlandish, his background bizarre, and for a time last week even his death was ambiguous.\u201d Ferrie had \u201c[a] bushy red wig with penciled eyebrows,\u201d and held various occupations where he \u201cfunctioned legitimately.\u201d Yet he was also \u201cdismissed as a seminary student (for emotional instability), as an Eastern Airlines pilot (for homosexuality) and as a suspect in the assassination of John F. Kennedy (for lack of evidence)\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01967a, p. 32<\/p>\n

\"\"
The New JFK Show #219 JFK Conferences in 2018 (22 November 2018)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another piece begins, \u201cThe sinister summer of 1963 was a time of turbulence for New Orleans, that most Latin of major U.S. cities. The streets were seething with Cuban exiles of every political stripe, and the city was simmering with their plots and counterplots\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>1967b, p. 44). Indeed, the emphasis of New Orleans Latino and gay communities contributed to the murky backdrop of Garrison\u2019s environs, and, from the standpoint of then-conventional American mores, contributed to the investigation\u2019s uncertainty and conspiratorial dimension.<\/p>\n

For example, Garrison\u2019s attention toward \u201chomosexuals, a relatively vulnerable group, tended to produce a line-up of alleged conspirators, that much of the public found difficult to take seriously.\u201d While Ferrie was regarded by Garrison as \u201c\u2019one of history\u2019s most important individuals\u2019\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01967a, p. 30) he remained \u201ca laughingstock to exile [Cuban] militants\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01967b, p. 47). Garrison\u2019s efforts to substantiate testimony from a key witness through sodium pentothal and hypnosis were interpreted by\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0as a \u201cgumbo of hypnotism and drugs, spiced with a soupcon of homosexual entanglement\u201d (Newsweek 1967c, p. 44).<\/p>\n

Perry Russo attested to observing Ferrie, Shaw and Lee Harvey Oswald discuss plans for Kennedy\u2019s assassination. Newsweek describes him as the \u201cideal witness.\u201d \u201cHe was cool, calm\u2014\u2018almost as if he was hypnotized,\u2019 said one attorney. Lo and behold, the defense later discovered that Russo had been hypnotized, just hours before he testified.\u201d In fact, Russo had been placed under hypnosis 50 hours before his testimony. Garrison\u2019s second \u201c\u2019witness\u2019\u201d was \u201ca 27-year-old Negro drug addict, Vernon Bundy [who] said that while sitting on the lakefront one morning waiting to \u2018pop\u2019 a cap of heroin he looked up and saw Oswald being handed a wad of money by Shaw\u201d (Aynesworth 1967, p. 38).<\/p>\n

The investigation \u201chad the look of a remarkable improvisation, a helter-skelter house of canards teetering and hanging on the verge of collapse.\u201d Moreover, the apparent exoticism of the characters and hocus-pocus investigative methods meld with and adulterate Garrison\u2019s \u201ctheory,\u201d one that,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0stresses, \u201chad undergone so many permutations that his composite conspirator now would probably be equal parts Oswald, homosexual, right wing extremist, FBI agent, Cosa Nostra hood, CIA operative and Russian double agent\u201d (Aynesworth 1967, p. 40).<\/p>\n

If Garrison\u2019s techniques appear \u201cdubious,\u201d Time notes, \u201csome of the characters he has gathered around him seem even stranger. He has opened his files to Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg, Mort Sahl and other Warren Commission critics (they call themselves the Dealey Plaza Irregulars). And he has also based many of his verbal charges on the stories of an exceptional crew of weirdos, convicts, and homosexuals\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01968b, p. 74).<\/p>\n

Such scrutiny contrasts with coverage in immoderate Europe, \u201cwhere thousands still cling to the [Garrison] conspiracy theory in spite of the Warren commission\u2019s conclusions that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the 46-year-old Garrison and his investigation have been the stuff of page one headlines.\u201d The European \u201ctaste for conspiracy,\u201d\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967d, p. 76) suggests, \u201ccontrasts with \u201cmost domestic newsmen \u2026 and their editors\u201d who \u201cregard Garrison with skepticism\u201d and thus \u201chave played down his charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its review of NBC\u2019s special hour-long treatment of Garrison\u2019s inquiry,\u00a0The JFK Conspiracy: The Case of Jim Garrison<\/em>,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967e, p. 82) noted how the network \u201ctook its audience on a rare voyage through a netherworld usually only visited by novelists and mystery writers. It presented vignettes of pimps, pornographers, homosexuals, sexual masochists, nymphomaniacs, and narcotic addicts.\u201d The disturbing program \u201cpored over complex codes and cryptographs, and sifted through theories of hypnotic spells, truth serums and polygraphs. And it provided some exotic dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967e, p. 21) also reported on NBC\u2019s The JFK Conspiracy\u2014specifically how lie detector tests \u201chad cast doubt on the testimony of two key witnesses\u201d and even \u201cseemed to indicate that Russo had a psychopathic personality.\u201d Garrison \u201chas forced up the ante with one bizarre theory after another\u2026\u201d Still, \u201c[t]he press and TV continued to dismantle his imagined maze of Machiavellianism: secret codes that supposedly led to Ruby\u2019s telephone number, the elusive and probably fictional \u2018Clay Bertrand,\u2019 the Cuban intrigue.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a similar reportorial tableau,\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967a, p. 30) also focused on the unusual features of New Orleans and Garrison\u2019s bizarre witnesses. For example, Ferrie was \u201cnervous, sick, probably homosexual\u2014with thick, rug-like pieces of fabric replacing eyebrows, lost either by accident or disease\u2014[Ferrie] had known that Garrison was after him and, said his physician, had been \u2018disturbed and depressed.\u2019\u201d Garrison\u2019s investigation,\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967c, p. 21) notes, focuses on \u201camong others, pro-Castro leftists, anto-Castro Cubans and a motley assortment of beatniks, homosexuals and psychopaths of various stripes.\u201d Such figures could be found in \u201c\u2019gay\u2019 coffee shops and bars in New Orleans\u2019 French Quarter to shadowy back streets in the Cuban sections of Dallas and Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0described Garrison\u2019s \u201cspectacular investigation\u201d as \u201cbarely distinguishable from a circus sideshow,\u201d while reporting on a three judge hearing surveying evidence where it concluded suspect Clay Shaw must face trial. \u201cOne of the D.A.\u2019s witnesses was a confessed heroin addict. The other was a young insurance salesman whose impeccable clothing concealed a mind in considerable disarray and whose memory had to be jogged by means of hypnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0article (1967f, p. 47) emphasizes the prosecutor\u2019s dubious reliance on \u201ctruth drugs and hypnotism\u201d to bound Shaw to trial. Such drugs, one Yale psychiatry professor argues, \u201cput patients in \u2018a twilight zone where it is very difficult to tell truth from fantasy.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967g, p. 54) further focuses on attorney Dean Andrews, who Garrison had convicted of perjury for failing to divulge Shaw\u2019s double identity and relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald. \u201cEver since Garrison\u2019s inquiry started,\u201d the publication noted, \u201cthe oddball lawyer has bounced in and out with such a mixture of contradictions and dislocated hip talk that few knew or cared what he was saying. Garrison kept track though \u2026 \u2018The jolly green giant\u2019 as Andrews calls Garrison, filed perjury charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frame Three: \u201cJolly Green Giant in Wonderland\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first two frames confirm the caricature of Garrison\u2019s personal features, behavior, and alleged political opportunism that form Frame Three. While Garrison has no direct control over the press, sought to keep the case out of public view for as long as possible, and granted almost no interviews, he is presented as commanding his own publicity via the seemingly odd nature of his observations and hypotheses. Thus, this frame is unique, for it is one that news outlets arguably perpetuate then fault Garrison for.<\/p>\n

The district attorney earned the nickname \u201cJolly Greent Giant\u201d for his physical height and outgoing character as an office holder. Yet the coverage provides the repeated suggestion that Garrison is pursuing the investigation for personal gain. Where novice investigators delve into assassination research with religious zeal, Garrison wants publicity and higher office. For example, New Orleans resident, US intelligence operative and key witness Gordon Novel, who fled to Ohio to avoid \u201charassment,\u201d is quoted remarking, \u201c\u2019Garrison\u2019s political ambitions is what this is all about\u2019\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01967h, p. 37). When Garrison implicated the FBI and CIA because of their reluctance to turn over documents in the case,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967f, p. 42) noted how the \u201cnew moves produced the intended result\u2014publicity\u2014and nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBC\u2019s television news special \u201cadd[ed] to the growing body of evidence that Garrison\u2019s case is more show than substance\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>1967e, p. 82). \u201cA special law of thermodynamics seems to govern Jim Garrison\u2019s free-form search for a \u2018conspiracy\u2019 behind the murder of John F. Kennedy,\u201d\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1968b, p. 25) noted. \u201c[I]t gets hot when public attention grows cooler.\u201d In reality, the investigation was \u201cBig Jim\u2019s headline-hunting sideshow\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01969a, p. 27). \u201cOver the course of \u201ctwo years, big Jim Garrison has been an extra ordinarily imaginative barker in promoting his assassination sideshow in New Orleans\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01969b, p. 34).<\/p>\n

Along these lines, \u201cAfter years of circus tactics,\u201d\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1969a, p.44) observed as Shaw\u2019s trial approached, \u201che is obviously the main character in the courtroom drama.\u201d New Orleans\u2019 two dailies, the\u00a0Times-Picayune<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0States-Item<\/em>\u00a0were plagued \u201cfrom an apparent case of astigmatism\u201d in their two years of reportage and restricted editorial comment on the Garrison investigation\u2014what\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1969c, p. 105) termed a \u201chometown story.\u201d The papers are critiqued for failing \u201cto expose District Attorney Jim Garrison as he spun out a fantastical conspiracy theory implicating everyone from Cuban exiles and homosexuals to the CIA in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a similar tone\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967a, p. 30) reported how the inquiry \u201chas already garnered a bumper crop of publicity for Jim Garrison,\u201d as he embarked on \u201chis sensational crusade to unmask a conspiracy\u201d (Time<\/em>1967b, p. 24). It is \u201cJim Garrison\u2019s spectacular investigation\u201d (Time<\/em>1967c, p. 33) where \u201c[f]or months\u201d he \u201chas been releasing the findings of his bizarre investigation into President Kennedy\u2019s assassination one headline at a time\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01967d, p. 50). The district attorney has \u201cforced up the ante with one bizarre conspiracy theory after another\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01967e, p. 21) giving him \u201cample means to force his version of the truth into the limelight,\u201d after \u201cpumping the case for two years in public\u201d (Time<\/em>\u00a01969b, p. 35). Garrison\u2019s behavior and environs starkly contrast with defendant Clay Shaw, ostensibly depicted as the victim of Garrison\u2019s excesses; \u201ca white-haired, deep-voiced bachelor who had lived under accusation and innuendo for the past two years,\u201d Time (1969c, p. 31) observes.<\/p>\n

Similarly\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967b, p. 24) describes Shaw as a \u201cbachelor-about-town\u201d and Time a \u201cwell-known business leader.\u201d A search of his home upon arrest \u201cyielded little but apparently unrelated exotica: five whips, several lengths of chain, a black net hat, a black cape and hood\u201d (Newsweek<\/em>\u00a01967b, p. 47). Newsweek asserts how \u201cthe district attorney and his staff have been indirect parties to the death of one man and have humiliated, harassed, and financially gutted several others.\u201d A caption to a photo in the piece reads, \u201cShaw: A price for vulnerability\u201d (Aynesworth 1967, p. 40).<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim Garrison\u2019s investigation and prosecution of Clay Shaw was the only case brought forth by a law enforcement official in the JFK assassination. US press coverage of the event played a significant role in the broader court of public opinion. This study adds another dimension to this equation, suggesting the significance of the Garrison inquiry in the eyes of a US intelligence community that had long since taken an active interest news media and their fundamental role in public discourse.<\/p>\n

The reportage under consideration here is even more curious when, among other things, one considers how Garrison went to great lengths to protect Shaw\u2019s rights. This included arranging for a preliminary hearing to determine if the defendant should be required to stand trial. Upon a unanimous decision the case was brought before the Grand Jury, which charged Shaw of involvement in a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. \u201cI took these steps,\u201d Garrison explains, \u201canyone of which, if unsuccessful, would have ended the case then and there\u2014because I felt that the enormity of the charge required me to exercise every conceivable caution on behalf of the president\u201d (Garrison, 1970, p. 17).<\/p>\n

More recent evidence places certain press involvement in sabotaging Garrison\u2019s case essentially beyond dispute. For example, members of the NBC News crew that traveled to New Orleans in 1967 to document Garrison\u2019s investigation were collaborating with Shaw\u2019s defense team in efforts to persuade key witnesses such as Perry Russo to change their testimony, and \u201ceven attempting to move major witnesses permanently to another part of the country,\u201d Garrison recounts. \u201cWe had already been the targets of numerous distortions exaggerations, and even fabrications in the news media. But these \u2018media\u2019 people were going far beyond word games. They were engaged in an organized effort to derail an official investigation of a major city\u2019s district attorney\u2019s office\u201d (Garrison 1988, p.168).<\/p>\n

At least one newsweekly writer was also sharing notes with federal officials and Shaw\u2019s attorneys as he outwardly reported on the investigation as a journalist. Hugh Aynesworth\u2019s\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0article, \u201cJFK \u2018Conspiracy\u2019\u201d was an acutely vitriolic attack on Garrison and the investigation. Yet Aynesworth was an informant for the FBI and President Johnson on the case, even wiring a rough draft of the article to Johnson\u2019s press secretary a few days before its publication. Indeed, documents declassified under the Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 indicate how Aynesworth also collaborated with Shaw\u2019s defense to subvert witness testimony (DiEugenio 2012, pp. 251-253).<\/p>\n

In addition to CIA Dispatch 1035-960, the Agency took a specific interest in Garrison\u2019s prosecution of Shaw, with a working group convened by the Director of Intelligence in September 1967 to examine the dilemma and determine actions in what it perceived as a probable \u201cconviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy\u201d (Janney, 16, 2013). A primary outcome of the coverage remains the discursive and ideational basis of the term \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d in the contemporary informational lexicon. This powerful label and notion signifies a more complicated historical nexus of political tensions and uncertainties that remain unsettled. The fundamentals of the conspiracy theorist marker involve cultivating the impression of an individual or group\u2019s odd disaffection from accepted norms and popular moorings accomplished through the news media\u2019s framing process\u2014indeed a \u201cstrategy of exclusion\u201d that preserves certain core political configurations and a public consent conducive to their preservation.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aynesworth, Hugh (1967) \u201cThe JFK \u2018Conspiracy\u2019,\u201d\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>, 15 May, pp. 36, 38, 40.<\/p>\n

Bernstein, Carl (1977) \u201cThe CIA and the Media: How America\u2019s Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up,\u201d\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/em>, 20 October. Available at\u00a0http:\/\/www.carlbernstein.com\/magazine_cia_and_media.php
\n<\/a>
\n\u201cCIA Dispatch, \u2018Countering Criticism of the Warren Report\u2019\u201d, April 1, 1967, in: James H. Fetzer (Ed.)\u00a0Assassination Science: experts speak out on the death of JFK<\/em>, Chicago: Catfeet Press, 1998.<\/p>\n

Davis, Deborah (1979)\u00a0Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and the Washington Post<\/em>, National Press Inc., 1979.<\/p>\n

DiEugenio, James (2012)\u00a0Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case<\/em>, Second Edition, New York: Skyhorse Publishing.<\/p>\n

Entman, Robert (1993) \u201cFraming: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,\u201d\u00a0Journal of Communication<\/em>, 42(4), pp. 51-58.<\/p>\n

Garrison, Jim (1970)\u00a0A Heritage of Stone<\/em>, New York: G.P. Putnam\u2019s Sons.<\/p>\n

Garrison, Jim (1988)\u00a0On the Trail of the Assassins<\/em>, New York: Penguin.<\/p>\n

Gregory, David (2013)\u00a0Meet the Press<\/em>, NBC News, 10 November.<\/p>\n

Hall, Stuart, Chritcher, Chas, Jefferson, Tony, Clarke, John and Roberts, Brian (1978)\u00a0Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the state, and law and order<\/em>, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.<\/p>\n

deHaven-Smith, Lance (2013)\u00a0Conspiracy Theory in America<\/em>, Austin: University of Texas Press.<\/p>\n

Husting, Ginna and Orr, Martin (2007) \u201cDangerous Machinery: \u2018Conspiracy Theorist\u2019 as a Transpersonal Strategy of Exclusion,\u201d\u00a0Symbolic Interaction<\/em>\u00a030(2), pp. 127-150.<\/p>\n

Janney, F.W.M. (1967) Memorandum for the Record: Garrison Group Meeting Number 1, 20 September. Available at\u00a0http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/193124141\/CIA-Garrison-Group-1967-Review-of-Jim-Garrison-trial-of-JFK-murder-conspiracy-suspect-Clay-Shaw
\n<\/a>
\nJohnson, Loch K. (1989)\u00a0America\u2019s Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society<\/em>, New York: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n

Miliband, Ralph (1969)\u00a0The State in Capitalist Society<\/em>, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.<\/p>\n

New York Times<\/em>\u00a0(1977) \u201cCable Sought to Discredit Critics of Warren Report,\u201d 26 December, p. A37.<\/p>\n

Olmsted, Kathryn S. (1996)\u00a0Challenging the Secret Government: The Post Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI<\/em>, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.<\/p>\n

Playboy (1967) \u201cJim Garrison\u2019s Playboy Interview,\u201d October. Available at\u00a0http:\/\/www.jfklancer.com\/Garrison2.html
\n<\/a>
\nNewsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1966a) \u201cAny Number Can Play,\u201d 7 November, 1966, pp. 37-38.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1966b) \u201cThe Missing Link,\u201d 14 November, pp. 30-31.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1966c) \u201cJFK: The Death and the Doubts,\u201d 5 December, 1966, pp. 25-26.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967a) \u201cCarnival in New Orleans,\u201d 6 March, pp. 32-33.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967b) \u201cHistory or Headlines? New Orleans Investigation,\u201d 13 March, pp. 44, 47.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967c) \u201cThe Assassination: Thickening the Plot,\u201d 27 March, pp. 37-38.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967d) \u201cA Taste for Conspiracy,\u201d Newsweek, 20 March, p. 76.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967e) \u201cTwo for the Seesaw,\u201d Newsweek, 3 July, p. 82.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1968a) \u201cJolly Green Giant in Wonderland,\u201d 2 August, p. 74.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1967e) \u201cSleight of Hand,\u201d 22 May, pp. 40, 42.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1968a) \u201cLaw Unto Himself,\u201d 8 January, p. 25.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1969a) \u201cCurtains for the D.A.,\u201d 27 January, p. 27.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1969b) \u201cMardi Gras Season,\u201d 17 February, p. 34.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/em>\u00a0(1969c) \u201cCovering Big Jim,\u201d 17 March, p. 105.<\/p>\n

Roberts, Charles (1966) \u201cEyewitness in Dallas,\u201d\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>, 5 December, pp. 26-29.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1966a) \u201cInto the Archives,\u201d 11 November, p. 33.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1966b) \u201cThe Mythmakers,\u201d 11 November, p. 33.<\/p>\n

Time (1966c) \u201cPhantasmagoria,\u201d 2 December, pp. 34-35.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967a) \u201cBourbon Street Rococo,\u201d Time, 3 March, p. 30.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967b) \u201cOdd Company,\u201d Time, March 10, 1967, p. 24.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967c) \u201cThe D.A. Wins a Round,\u201d 24 March, p. 33.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967d) \u201cSomething of a Shambles,\u201d 30 June, p. 50.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967e) \u201cClosing In,\u201d 7 July 7, p. 21.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967f) \u201cShutting Up Big Mouth,\u201d 25 August, p. 54.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1967g) \u201cCharge of Conspiracy,\u201d Time, 25 August, pp. 36-37.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1968) \u201cJolly Green Giant in Wonderland,\u201d 2 August 2, p. 74.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1969a) \u201cSideshow in New Orleans,\u201d 31 January, p. 44.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1969b) \u201cGarrison v the People,\u201d Time, 14 March, p. 35.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em>\u00a0(1969c) \u201cGarrison\u2019s Last Leap,\u201d Time, 7 March, p. 31.<\/p>\n

U.S. News & World Report<\/em>\u00a0(1966) \u201c\u2019Overwhelming Evidence Oswald Was Assassin\u2019: Interview with Arlen Specter, Assistant Counsel, Warren Commission,\u201d 10 October, pp. 48-65.<\/p>\n

U.S. News & World Report<\/em>\u00a0(1967a) \u201cJFK Death: A New Investigation, But\u2014,\u201c 13 March, p. 16.<\/p>\n

U.S. News & World Report<\/em>\u00a0(1967b) \u201cMore on the Kennedy Assassination Charges,\u201d 12 June, pp. 55-56.<\/p>\n

___
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