In response to Max Holland’s piece on the new JFK files in the Weekly Standard, I sent the following letter:
To the Editor:
In his piece on the new JFK files, “Much Ado About Nothing,” Max Holland accuses me of “repeating a falsehood until it achieves the veneer of truth.” He cites no such falsehood, which is prudent of him because there are none.
Holland describes me as a “conspiracy theorist” par excellence who “has injected my “Deep State culpability” theory into the New York Times, Washington Post (
I thank Holland for citing these articles. They spare me the need to refute his false quotation and unfounded claims. Readers will observe that I do not offer a JFK conspiracy theory or use the phrase “the Deep State,” in any of these articles, (though I do quote Trump’s use of it in the Newsweek piece.)
To clarify my interpretation of November 22, 1963, I think certain CIA operations officer were culpable in the wrongful death of the president, among them counterintelligence chief James Angleton. As I show in The Ghost, my new biography of Angleton, his Special Investigations Group constantly monitored the leftist politics, Soviet contacts, and personal life of Lee Harvey Oswald for four years, from November 1959 to November 1963. Angleton’s office was even notified by the FBI in mid-November 1963 that Oswald was in Dallas.
After JFK’s murder, Angleton obstructed the assassination investigation and committed perjury to obfuscate his long-standing interest in Oswald. I think that the best explanation for his illegal actions is that he was seeking to conceal legal culpability. For the record, I see no proof Angleton was part of an assassination conspiracy.