After two episodes the History Channel documentary series JFK Declassified: Tracking Oswald, seems to have ceased. The third installment of the six-part series, scheduled for release on Tuesday, has not appeared on the History Channel web site. I’ve asked History Channel for comment. If you have relevant information, drop me a note.
Dan Hardway and I debated the show’s host, ex-CIA man Robert Baer, on Miami talk radio last week. I said that the program’s revelations were not new and that its reporting on the role of intelligence services in the JFK story lacked balance. Dan asked Baer if he knew the story of George Joannides and Baer indicated he did not.
The show was noteworthy for breaking with the official story of the assassination and advancing the “Castro Done it” theory. This interpretation of November 22 is not new. It was articulated most recently by Brian Latell, another former CIA employee. As I told Baer, the CIA has not provided the documentation to verify the testimony of the Cuban defector on whom Latell and Baer rely. So their claims cannot be corroborated.
The “Castro Done It” theory was first promulgated on November 24, 1963, before JFK had even been buried. It was the first JFK conspiracy theory to reach public print–and it was paid for by the CIA. So the genealogy of Baer’s theory is long which the History Channel may not have known.
I don’t know why History Channel has stopped rolling out this flawed account of the JFK story but I am sure the answer will be revealing.
Stay tuned.